


The Gatlinburg Murders

by ratherbehere



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Community: deancasbigbang, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Masturbation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-22
Updated: 2014-11-22
Packaged: 2018-02-26 03:12:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 27,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2635880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherbehere/pseuds/ratherbehere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone, or something, is killing people in the peaceful tourist destination of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Sam and Dean go in expecting a simple salt and burn, but things get tricky when it looks like Cas, a blue eyed local painter with a mysterious past, may be wrapped up in it somehow. Are Dean's growing feelings for the painter getting in the way, or are they trying to tell him something?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gatlinburg Murders

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set in the real town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and most of the buildings, geography, and descriptions are accurate. Most of the businesses mentioned are real businesses. The history I draw from is real. But while I did my best to be as loyal and true to the area as possible, there are a few things I took liberty with. Consult the end notes for a detailed explanation, as well as all of my thanks and other relevant links. (Contains spoilers.)
> 
> For your listening pleasure, [georg-prime](http://georg-prime.tumblr.com) put together a playlist inspire by her first read through of the fic and can be found on [Spotify](https://play.spotify.com/user/georg-prime/playlist/2vhjrvyGjPrSXkH4gqbV6A) and [here](http://www.megafileupload.com/en/file/581851/The-Gatlinburg-Murders-Fanmix-rar.html) for download.

The morning mist evaporated off the mountains in the distance and shed light on the origin of the geo formation’s name, The Smoky Mountains. It was as if miles of earth and rock were on fire without flame. Dean could feel the mist around him, the humidity soaking in through his jeans and plaid layered shirts. Though the view was gorgeous, he hoped they could wrap up the case quickly.

Six people have died in Gatlinburg, Tennessee in the last few months, all of them with a beheading by axe blow. Panic had spread quickly around the small tourist town, not only because murders were occurring, but because they were occurring within locked rooms, without a single trace of evidence. The entire thing screamed evil spirit.

Literally- the paper in Louisville headlined the event with “Evil Spirit Threatens Tourist Haven.” Dean had set his mug of mediocre diner coffee down slowly and passed the paper to Sam without a word. Within a minute, cash was laid on the table and the duo was back in the car, eating pavement on the way south.

The motel they’d decided on, out of, frankly, far too many options, was on the east side of town and though the balcony was suspect at best for carrying Dean’s weight, it provided the gorgeous view he was currently soaking in. With one last eye on the mountains, he turned to get dressed.

He got as far as his suit pants before Sam exited the bathroom and stopped him.

“Bad call,” Sam said, shaking his floppy head. “I don’t think we should go Fed on this one.”

Dean dropped his hand from the buttons of his suit shirt. “It’s the best way to interrogate.”

“We’re in the mountains, Dean,” Sam said, dropping his toiletry kit back into his bag and zipping it shut. “They’ve modernized, but we’re still in the country. I doubt these people will react well to a couple of Feds stepping into their territory.”

Reluctantly, Dean admitted he had a point. “Alright,” he said sitting on his bed. “How do you want to play it?”

“Well,” Sam said, “Several of the victims have family that work as craftsmen.” He pulled out a map of the area they had picked up yesterday and shook it open to the side that focused on the Arts and Crafts Community. “I suggest we start by doing a little shopping.”

“Come on in!” the ageing woman behind the counter said in greeting, her frizzy hair swaying in the breeze. “Welcome. My, it’s good to see a few faces not afraid of the ‘spirits.’”

The shop was not in one of the tiny strips that several of the shopping areas were nestled into, but rather, a little off the beaten path. It was rustic, the exterior made to look like a log cabin, stacks of huge rounds of wood leading up to a tin roof. From the back came the occasional sounds of a saw, and other tools being used on wood.

The inside revealed, however, that the log cabin wasn’t just made to look like one. It _was_ one.

Still, the place was homey. A fan in the back struggled to chase away some of the summer heat, and the lighting was all natural, falling in warm rays through the glass windows.  The woman was standing behind a U-shaped counter in the center of the room, the display cases showing nick-knacks carved from wood. The rest of the room featured larger wood-working projects.  Dean didn’t know his crafts all that well, but he could still spot the care and attention to detail in each piece. A bench to his right featured intricately carved vines and leaves all around the side paneling, explaining why the bench was currently priced at $2,000.

“I take it you don’t believe in the ghost stories?” Sam asked, wandering up to the counter, pretending to check out a set of wood carved switchblades.

The woman snorted. “I may be half Cherokee with a mother who worships spirits daily, but I never did believe in ghost stories. Something else killed my nephew, I’m sure of it.”

“You sound pretty confident of that,” Dean said, fingers brushing over a carved axe handle. “Any guesses?” He turned to meet her suspicious glare. “I mean, we’re brand new to town, don’t want to go off into the wrong spots or anything.”

“Hmm,” she replied, still eyeing him. “Well I’d avoid those Smiths if you can. Picked a fight with Rodney cause he tossed an apple core on their lawn.” Her face twisted with disdain. “Whole family is inbred if you ask me.”

“Smiths, right. And they are craftsmen too, or…?” Dean asked, leaving the question hanging. Sam moved to the next display case.

The woman snorted again. “So they claim. They own a gem mine and a store out on Glades Road.”

Dean nodded. “I’ll avoid it then,” he told her. _After we stop by it next._

The woman nodded, pleased with his response. Her humidity addled hair bobbed with the gesture. She had sharp eyes and an angular look about her that spoke of someone not to be trifled with.

“I’m sorry about your nephew,” Sam told her as he stepped away from the case. “Were you close?”

She bit her lip and wrapped her fingers on the glass of the top of the display case. “A little. I fell out with his mom a few years ago,” she said. The woman huffed a piece of hair out of her face, stood up straighter, and put on a false smile. “So where are you both from, anyway? How did you meet?”

Dean jerked in surprise. It wasn’t the first time the inference had been made, but he would have assumed, this far into the country, that they wore far too heterosexual of a lens to even think it.

“Oh, I’m sorry, are you not ‘out’ yet?” she went on. “That may be a smart move around here, not everyone is up on the times yet.”

“That’s not, um. We’re not, we don’t,” Dean stuttered all over the place.

“We’re brothers,” Sam supplied, an amused grin shot in Dean’s direction. The woman merely raised an eyebrow. “Uh. Non-romantically involved brothers.” When the woman continued to stare at him, he added, “I’m straight.”

“Uh huh,” the woman drawled. “And the Ken-“

Dean coughed loudly. “Thanks for your time, but we have some more shopping to do.” He offered his hand for a shake, “I’m Dean, that’s Sam, maybe we’ll see you again.”

“Stop by any time,” she assured him, eyeing him up and down in a way that made Dean distinctly uncomfortable.

“Will do,” Sam replied.

Once the door was shut and the storm door was banging against the frame behind them, Dean took a deep, cleansing breath of the warm, moist air. The temperature had gone up at least five degrees while they were inside. He was going to have to start peeling layers off.

“Still uncomfortable about it, huh?” Sam ventured as he approached the passenger side of the Impala.

Dean paused. “I only told you a month ago,” Dean finally responded. He met Sammy’s sympathetic stare over the car.

“You only told me cause I caught you flirting with a guy in a bar, and even then it was mostly because you had seven beers in you,” Sam said.

“Exactly,” Dean said, considering Sam’s own testimony to be proof enough why being asked about his sexuality was still too much for him to handle with ease. He’d spent years repressing it, and it was only when their lives had calmed down from the heights of insanity long enough that he could start to open up. He’d barely admitted it to himself, let alone his brother, like hell he was just going to openly talk about it with some perceptive stranger.  With a square of his shoulders, he unlocked the Impala and slid inside. Conversation over.

For the first time, Dean cursed his baby’s interior as he slid onto the black leather. It was boiling hot and provided at least one reason Dean should leave his shirt _on_ if he didn’t want to lose his skin. The engine purred to life and he kicked the air conditioning onto high. The tradeoff here was that the refrigerant used in 1967 was miles better than the refrigerant used today. It may be helping deplete the ozone just a bit faster, but as it hit Dean with icy cold air within minutes, he couldn’t be bothered to care about greenhouse gasses in that moment.

“We checking out these Smiths, or do you want to keep on the vics’ families?” Dean asked as he backed out.

“Well she was a little vague about what store the Smiths run, so I think we stick with the families we know about for now, and check out the gem stores as we go,” Sam said. He pulled out a map of the Arts and Crafts district where they had circled some places. “Just keep heading north on Glades.”

Hogg’s Pub and Grub was cool and the beer was colder, and that’s all Dean cared about as he took a gulp of Sam Adams, one of two beers on tap. The floors were made of a tan, diamond patterned tile and the walls were made of horizontally planked wood. Combined with the wood beams overhead, the place felt like a cozy barn. The leather booths and orange glow lanterns on the walls were a little incongruous with that image, but gave the bar a classier undercurrent.

The entire day had been a bust. They spent it listening to Gatlinburg natives trash each other and discuss minor gossip like whose dog ran away and whether Mrs. Walsh was really going to paint her fence pink. They also discovered that Gatlinburg was extremely superstitious and believed about 5,000 different ghosts might be responsible for the strange deaths. It had been exhausting and pointless.

Dean took another sip of the cool amber beer and sighed.

“I’m not sure where this leaves us,” Sam said. He was bent over the table, hunched so far his head was nearly in his salad. “Guess we’ll have to do some more research.”

“Yeah, why don’t you finish up and head back to the room and see what you can dig up online,” Dean said.

“And you?” Sam asked.

Dean grinned. “I’ll be doing research into what the local night life is like.”

Sam sighed, but didn’t complain. He only had one laptop and even if Dean wanted to research the old fashioned way, the bars and restaurants weren’t a bad place to learn the local gossip and secrets. Particularly after a few beers, people let things slip.

One of Dean’s many gifts was having a second sense for trouble, and it was going off. He scanned the bar for the source and it didn’t take long to spot the problem. Some huge guy with a bad farmer’s tan was hitting on a girl at the bar, and from the way she was trying to push him away, she didn’t seem to appreciate it.

Sam saw it too, moving to stand.

“I got it,” Dean told him.

He made it five feet before the scene was intercepted from the other direction. Dean stopped in his tracks as a man with tousled, dark hair, a midnight blue plaid shirt, and jeans over a lean frame stepped in and said, “I believe she told you no.”

Dean paused, hovering nearby to see how this would play out. The dark haired rescuer might need a hand, or he might have it covered. Besides, his voice was like a whiskey soaked rag being dragged over gravel and Dean may or may not be hoping to catch a few more notes of it. Purely to deduce if the acoustics in the building had something to do with the unearthly tone to his voice, of course.

“I believe it’s none of your business,” the bigger man sneered.

“Leave,” the man snarled. “Now.”

Well, Dean sure would have been intimidated by the way he growled out the command. As it was, the voice and the stance the man was adopting, confident, strong, but relaxed, was already peeking his less-than-noble interest. But apparently Mr. Bad Tan wasn’t having the same reaction and took a swing instead.

Dean watched in amazement as the other guy caught his fist with his left hand, socked him with the right, and then caught the asshole on his way to the floor.

“You ready to leave now?” he asked with a steady voice.

The asshole didn’t even answer. He shook his head a few times before he pushed himself off of the other man’s support and stumbled his way out the door without turning around once.

The other guy checked on the girl, and after she thanked him, he turned to go. He paused when he saw Dean, standing there, watching the whole thing.

Their eyes met like lightening to a rod. Something was so familiar about this guy, Dean was certain he knew him. He had no idea where from or how, cause he was also certain he could never have forgotten someone like this, but he was familiar in a bone deep way. The sight of those sharp blue eyes bore into him, and the guy looked no less affected than Dean was feeling.

The other man shook his head, as if shaking off the daze, and stepped forward. “I apologize,” he said, his voice just as low as before.

“Huh?” Dean nearly grunted, sounding like a moron.

“You wanted to be her knight, correct?” he asked. “If it makes a difference, I have no interest in her. You may want to wait a bit before flirting with her though.”

Dean was confused for a moment before he understood what the guy had assumed. “Oh, no, that’s not, I mean,” he stuttered. “Dean,” he managed to get out smoothly. He offered his hand. “Thanks for saving me the bruised fist.”

The guy chuckled as he flexed his fist, feeling out any damage done. Apparently satisfied it was still functional, he took Dean’s offered handshake. “Castiel,” he said. “And you’re welcome.” He squinted his eyes as he looked at Dean. “Though, I do think in all fairness, this means you owe me a beer.”

Dean grinned. “Deal.”

He turned around to tell Sammy he could head back to the room whenever, but the kid was already gone. Sometimes, Dean could admit he had an awesome brother.

Dean motioned to the booth he’d just left. “Take a seat. Just push my bro’s rabbit food out of the way.” The leather was cool, but Dean’s body temperature had gone up enough that the leather was a little more uncomfortable than it had been five minutes ago.

Castiel slid the salad to the edge of the table for the server to grab and asked, “Here with family then? Where’d he go?”

Dean waved a hand in the air while the other reached for his half-finished beer. “Oh you know the type, more interested in a computer and a wi-fi connection than enjoying himself.”

Castiel nodded. “Of course everyone’s tastes are different, but I never understood anyone that would come to a place as beautiful as this and want to spend all of their time inside.”

“Well you have to admit, it’s a little hot out there,” Dean commented.

“It’s hot in here,” Castiel replied, eyes sharp. Dean blushed and ducked his head. It was a cheesy flirtation, but he still had no idea how to respond, he wasn’t quite used to flirting with guys openly. And, as he had explained to Sam, Gatlinburg was a far cry from New York. Castiel, fortunately, saved him from having to reply. “My apologies.”

A cough from the side alerted them that the server had appeared. She had Sam’s mostly finished salad in her hand. “You need anything, Cas?” the waitress asked. 

He looked at Dean, evaluating something before responding. “Yes, I’ll take a Yuengling please.”

The woman nodded, stepping away.

“You don’t have to,” Dean suddenly blurted. The man’s eyebrows raised. “Apologize, I mean. I didn’t, it’s not. I didn’t mind.” He dropped his head into his hands. “Oh god, please stop my mouth.”

When he finally looked to Castiel, he had tilted his head with a confused look and an amused smile tugged at his lips. Castiel reached a hand across the table and placed his fingers gently on Dean’s wrist. Dean noted there were flecks of paint on the slim digits. He gasped at the contact, pulling back to look more directly at his new acquaintance. Something, it felt, had literally just sparked between them. Castiel pulled his hand back.

“Have we met before?” Castiel said, jumping to the point.

Dean shook his head. “I have no idea. I’ve been trying to figure out the same thing. I don’t think I’d forget you if we had.”

 “Absolutely not,” Castiel agreed.

It might not have been meant as a flirtation, but Dean blushed nonetheless. Fortunately, the waitress reappeared with Castiel’s beer, and he took a good swig.

“So what brings you to Gatlinburg?” Castiel asked.

“You mean, despite the murders?” Dean ventured. He was going for a joke, which may have been ill-considered, given the nature of the topic. It was evidently a bad call either way, as Castiel’s face immediately darkened into something sad and forlorn. “Did you know-“

“No, nothing like that,” Castiel said, interrupting and shaking his head. “It’s just awful. I can feel this dark presence hanging over the town and there’s nothing I can do about it.” He stared at the table for a moment before looking up and continuing. “I hope the murders won’t dampen your stay. It’s really quite beautiful here.”

“So I’ve been told,” Dean responded.

Castiel blinked in surprise. “You haven’t seen anything yet?”

“Just the sunrise from the motel,” Dean explained.

Castiel took a gulp of his beer before slamming it back down, standing up, and putting a twenty dollar bill on the table.

“Are you leaving?” Dean asked, surprised. He didn’t think he was doing _that_ bad.

“ _We_ are leaving,” Castiel explained. “I have an apartment at the top of the tallest complex, just up Parkway. And,“ he checked his watch, “we have about thirty minutes before sunset.”

“Are you inviting me back to your place, Cas?” Dean asked with a half grin, the flirting coming a little easier. Whether or not he could go through with anything was up to the butterflies in his stomach. And since when does a man who has literally been to hell and back get butterflies in his stomach?

Castiel blinked once. “I am,” he stated. Then added carefully, “To watch the sun set.”

“I don’t know,” Dean said, sliding out of his booth. With mock concern, he added, “I hear there’s an axe murderer out there.”

Castiel grinned. “I promise, if I take anything off of you, it will not be your head.”

Dean was blushing again. Blushing and butterflies, he was going to have to drown that shit in motor oil. He threw back the rest of the beer in one gulp. It was a start.

After some discussion, Dean found himself climbing into the passenger seat of a Ford pickup. He’d never been much of a Ford guy, but he was at least grateful that Castiel wasn’t driving some fruity tiny high gas mileage piece of crap. And he supposed, given the environment, an all-terrain made a bit more sense than his Baby.

“Ford guy, huh?” Dean asked as they pulled out and the pavement started to disappear under the car.

Castiel snorted. “Not exactly. You take what you can find when you live in the middle of nowhere and have the budget of a painter.”

“Painting is your career?” Dean asked, surprised. He’d noted the paint earlier, but had assumed it was either a hobby or from painting a room or house. Castiel’s frame and build spoke more of someone with a more physical profession. Like a firefighter or lumberjack. Those still existed, right? Either way, imagining Cas swinging an axe, muscles working and sweat dripping, was all kinds of hot.

When Castiel didn’t respond right away, Dean looked over and saw him biting his lip. “Yeah,” he said. “A local craftsman took me in and taught me. I’m decent at it.” He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as they paused at a red light. “You never told me what brought you to Gatlinburg.”

Dean took a breath. He didn’t like lying to this guy. It didn’t sit right. But there was no getting past it, he certainly couldn’t say, “I’m here because someone is murdering people and we think it might be a ghost or other supernatural bad guy and we gank those things for a living.” So instead, he spun the lie he and Sam had told a dozen other shop owners earlier that day, that he and his brother needed a break from their pest control business and thought they’d get away from the rat race and hike the mountains a bit.

Castiel gave him a funny look. Dean squirmed. Somehow he suspected Castiel saw right through the lie.

The sun was low in the sky as they cruised down East Parkway. Warm rays streamed through the glass and Castiel’s skin seemed to glow in the light. Dean was just glad Castiel’s eyes were mostly fixed on the road as they chatted, so he could take in the sight unimpeded.

Castiel’s apartment complex was simple, and like most things in the small area, a little outdated, but fully functional. The hallway smelled a little musty, like carpet that had been in the humidity for too long, and the elevator’s air was a bit stale, but it didn’t smell of cat pee and the elevator moved fairly quickly to the top floor. Overall, Dean liked it. It wasn’t pretentious.

The apartment was different in only subtle ways. The carpet was worn, but not worn through, and the small kitchen nook obviously hadn’t had a new appliance in 20 years.  The living space wasn’t huge, but it was open and the far wall was a bay of glass with a sliding glass door to a balcony that faced due west. The orange glow filtered in and Castiel didn’t even bother turning a light on.

“Come in,” Castiel said. “Can I get you a drink? I don’t have any beer, but I have some whiskey.”

Dean was impressed. “Whiskey’s good,” he said as he wandered around the room. The blue striped country-styled couch in the middle of the room faced a tiny TV, and there was a bookcase in the corner, next to the kitchen pass through and the left wall, which was full of a mismatch of books.

Dean took a closer look while Castiel puttered in the kitchen and discovered that it truly was an odd assortment. Fiction, mystery and horror primarily, but also non-fiction, religious, historical, and political texts. Dean suddenly felt several degrees dumber. He smiled when he found Vonnegut. Well, it wasn’t all for naught.

Down the wall hung a painting. It was fantastical, a swirling white and blue sky, a field of lava and darkness below, and between the two was a figure with wings, though it was obvious the figure was in pain, his wings were shedding feathers and his skin was bubbling.  Dean reached a hand out, wanting to touch this vision that somehow spoke to him.

“I never know where the ideas come from,” Castiel said, appearing at his side. “These images of mine.”

“Yours?” Dean asked, taking the tumbler of whiskey Castiel handed to him.

“Mine,” Castiel confirmed, running a finger over a filigree C in the corner. “Come, you don’t want to miss this. The weather is just perfect for a sunset.”

Castiel lead Dean through the sliding glass doors and onto the balcony. The sun was nearing the horizon and already the sky was awash in shades of red and orange and pink. It was absolutely stunning.

The whiskey was strong and smooth as Dean sipped at it. It warmed his stomach the same way the sunlight was warming his skin, the same way the sky being set on fire warmed something undefinable, and the same way the man by his side inexplicably warmed everything else.

“You grew up with this?” Dean asked.

“No,” Castiel responded simply. He didn’t elaborate.

They watched in peaceful silence as the ball of orange and fire and light sank into the grey shadows of the peaks and valleys of the great Smokey Mountains. The rays stretched through the thin line of white fluffy clouds, igniting the entire landscape. Slowly, the color shifted darker, filled with more purple, until the mountains were a silhouette and the sun was nearly gone.

Dean didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until a hand touched the back of his arm. His glass was removed from his hand and he heard two chinks as they were set down. He turned to the sound, not realizing how close Castiel was standing. He didn’t mind one bit. The fading light was glowing in Castiel’s eyes, and Dean felt himself falling into their weight.

Their lips met softly, gentle and testing.  That first kiss lasted no more than a second. They pulled apart by no more than a finger’s width, Castiel’s eyes wide and surprised, yet questioning at the same time. He must have liked the answer in Dean’s gaze, for as the sun fell behind the peaks, he surged into Dean.

Castiel’s lips were perfect. Their weight, their width, the way he pressed them against Dean. He nipped at Dean’s lip, and when Dean growled he suddenly found himself shoved back into glass as Castiel returned the growl.

They fumbled their way to opening the door, and stumbled into the couch, collapsing awkwardly over the arms. Dean gasped, arching into the man now above him.

His entire body felt like it had absorbed the sun’s heat. He was burning and his heart was beating at a thousand miles a minute. Castiel tasted, it seemed quite literally, like heaven. A slim digit and paint covered hand was sliding up Dean’s thigh, and as it moved higher, so did a growing feeling of apprehension. Too new, _too much_. Oh my god, what was he doing?

“Whoa,” Dean was able to get out breathlessly, his hand stopping Castiel’s path.

Castiel pushed up immediately, giving him space. “We can stop,” Castiel said quickly.

Dean swallowed. “It’s just…” Just what? That when it comes to dick, he’s still a chicken shit? The panic was quickly being replaced with embarrassment. His cheeks filled with warmth.

Castiel stood up, letting out a shaky breath. “I’ll take you back to your car.” He ran a hand through his hair. “I shouldn’t have pushed.”

“Hey,” Dean said, sitting up. He placed a hand on Castiel’s thigh to stop him from leaving. He didn’t want this to end badly. He didn’t want it to end at all. “I uh, I don’t mean to sound like a total chick here, but it’s not that I’m not interested. I’ve just. I’ve never… I’m barely out of the bisexual closet here.”

The smile that graced Castiel’s features was a little sad, but understanding. “I get it,” he assured Dean. He dropped a hand to Dean’s head and ran it gently through his hair. “I’ve never really done _this_ either.” Dean assumed he meant the bar hookup. He gave a tiny shake of his head. “There’s something about you.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. The fingers in his hair were slowly reuniting the stalled flame from moments before. He took Castiel’s slim wrist in hand and kissed it while looking up to stare into Castiel’s eyes. “Let’s do this,” he said steadily.

He was ready. The panic was passing. They could at least fool around. But Castiel was shaking his head no.

 “You’ve been on edge all night,” Castiel explained. “Especially now, I would feel like I was taking advantage.”

Dean sighed. “Should I go?” he asked.

Castiel frowned. “Do you want to?”

Dean was surprised to have the question turned around on him. While he pondered how to handle that, his eyes glanced to the side and spied a small rack of movies. That wasn’t a horrible idea. “Hey, you know, I haven’t seen The Hobbit yet,” he ventured, hoping Cas would get his meaning.

“I haven’t seen any of The Lord of the Rings,” Castiel admitted.

Dean’s jaw dropped. “But you own them,” he said. When Castiel continued shaking his head, he added, “Well then, I think I know what we’re doing for the rest of the evening.”

Castiel raised an eyebrow.

“Movie marathon, dude,” Dean said with a cheeky grin. “Tell me you have popcorn.”

Castiel laughed and shook his head. “No, but I have marshmallows.”

“Good enough,” Dean replied. “Well, that and my whiskey, wherever you set that, you smooth bastard.”

Dean settled into the couch and would soon discover the movies were as good as he remembered. The company was even better. They made out a few times, but Castiel always pulled back before things got too heavy. Between the movie, the whiskey, and the man next to him, Dean was more content than he could remember being in a long time. It was unsettlingly sappy and far too adorable for two grown men, but he wasn’t going to let that get in the way.

He just barely remembered to send Sam a text that he would see him in the morning before falling asleep in a lump of blankets and limbs on Castiel’s country couch.

Sam was already at The Little House of Pancakes when Dean called to meet up, because, as Sam sniped at him over the phone, it was within a reasonable walking distance. Unlike the bar from the previous night. Dean got the impression that wasn’t the only reason he was getting the stink eye from his little brother as he slid into the booth.

Still, Sam said nothing and sipped at his coffee. The waitress took Dean’s order, eggs, hash browns and the country ham, and Dean stared at the old-fashioned news ad plastered table for a few minutes before he sighed and looked up.

“Out with it,” he groused. “What I do?”

Sam took a swig of his coffee before carefully putting the coffee down. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you’re exploring-“

“Sam,” Dean warned.

“Fine,” he huffed. “There’s an axe murderer on the loose and you’re spending the night with a stranger.”

Dean shifted uncomfortably for a moment, debating about what to say.

“I’ve spent the night with a lot of strangers while working a case,” he said. Which didn’t make him sound all that great, but still, the point remained.

“Which was also pretty stupid,” Sam said. “But this is different.”

Dean crossed his arms, defenses rising quickly. “Oh?”

“Hey,” Sam said, sitting forward, “Stop that. I don’t mean because he’s a guy. Well. I do, in a way. The difference is, one, those other times weren’t in a tight nit community where everyone knows everyone and anyone could be a suspect, and two, you could have taken out any of the others without breaking a sweat. That guy could have handed your ass to you.”

The thought of “that guy” and “ass” had Dean’s lips turning up in a leer without his conscious effort. Yes, he hoped there would be another opportunity, another opportunity to get over his hang-up BS.

“Dean!” Sam admonished.

The conversation was put on pause as the waitress appeared with Dean’s food. If he had extra cash, he would tip this place very well. Fast service, interesting décor. He liked it.

Dean dug into his eggs before speaking. “Relax Sam,” he said. “We spent almost the entire night watching Lord of the Rings.”

Sam raised an eyebrow, opened his mouth to speak several times before shaking his head. “I don’t know whether to tease you, yell at you, or congratulate you on finding someone as geeky as you are.” Dean didn’t know whether to take the statement as a compliment or insult.

“So,” Dean said, ready to change the topic, “Anything good come up in the research?”

“Not really,” Sam replied. “They all lead utterly boring, regular lives.”

“Jealous?” Dean asked.

“Nope. They can keep their boring. I just want a dog.”

Dean frowned and ignored the comment. It was something they’d discussed many times, but even with the discovery of the bunker and a semi-permanent home, their life didn’t suit dog ownership. Even if Dean had liked dogs, or pets of any kind.

“So what’s next? We haven’t talked to the local cops yet,” Dean pointed out.

Sam finished his coffee and signaled for a refill. Once the waitress was out of earshot, he replied, “That would require going fed and I’d rather exhaust other options first. I think we should check out the crime scenes next.”

It was easy to agree with that course of action. Dean finished the eggs, greasy potatoes and salty ham efficiently while Sam finished his egg white omelet and fruit and watched Dean with thinly veiled judgment of his food choices.

The day was no less hot than the previous and Dean was silently grateful Sam had squashed the idea of fed-ing up to talk to the cops.  A suit would have made the humidity nearly unbearable. He cranked his environment killing AC as the Impala rumbled to the closest victim’s house.  It was a little cottage off of the main drag, and once again, Dean was reminded that maybe his Baby wasn’t the best choice of vehicle for the mountains.

This vic had been single, no kids, so the property was abandoned for the time being, the yellow tape around the grounds demarking a lonely site with dark memories. They’d be lucky if none of the victims became restless spirits themselves.

Dean slid out a lock picking set and they were inside in less than a minute.  It would have felt more rewarding if the inside had been bigger or more impressive. It was a one bedroom, two room cabin. The floors were wood, the walls were wood, the bed was of a wooden frame. Only the couch seemed to be remotely comfortable, and given the worn state of it, even that was questionable. The cottage was sparsely decorated, no plants, thin curtains, and only two paintings, both, unsurprisingly, of the mountains.

The only thing of note was the blobby stain that marked where the murder had occurred.

It took them ten minutes to decide they had learned nothing and wasted a trip. Dean relocked the door and they left.

Sam sighed. “Next?”

The next place was just as uninteresting and somehow, despite being an apartment, about the same size. At the third place, they thought they might be onto something with an object under the couch where the vic was killed, but it turned out to be a hairband. The fourth was a much nicer house and provided a little excitement when the maid came in to do her job. They climbed out the bedroom window, nearly in giggles for feeling so much like movie villains. It wasn’t until the sixth location that they had a breakthrough.

“Hey,” Sam said from the family room. Dean was in the small bedroom and losing all hope, so he came quickly at Sam’s call. “That painting,” he said, “Look at the signature. I think that painter had a piece in every place we’ve been in. What are the odds of that?”

“Slim,” Dean replied, “Are you thinking some sort of summoning-“ He froze. He recognized that signature all too well. “Son of a bitch!”

“That doesn’t sound good.”

“That’s Castiel’s signature,” Dean said. When Sam did not react suitably shocked, Dean added, “The guy I was with last night.”

Sam’s jaw clicked, he swallowed so hard. “That’s not all.”

Dean pinched his forehead, bringing his eyebrows together. “Yeah?”

“There’s symbology in all of them. I’m not sure yet what they do, but you can see the lines in the scenery once you know to look for them,” Sam explained. He traced a finger over a few of them, and Dean had to admit, they were obvious once they were pointed out.

Symbols drawn in every painting that every victim had gotten from Castiel.

Dean was pissed. Pissed and freaked. More pissed than freaked though. He spent the entire evening with the guy and even if he hadn’t, he knew within minutes of meeting him that Castiel was not a murderer. He was never in danger, and Dean still believed that. Yet, Castiel had lied and was obviously involved in the case somehow. Mostly though, he was pissed because he’d spent the entire night with the guy and it was all cloaked in lies. At that moment, he didn’t even care that some of them were his own.

Dean slid out his phone and sent a text.

To Castiel: Where do you work?

God bless autocorrect. Before smartphones, his texts were a digital version of bad handwriting.

To Dean: The Village. Shopping plaza off Glades Rd. You bringing me a treat?

Dean didn’t respond.

“Come on Sam, we’ve got our next stop.”

The Village was a small strip of artisan shops nestled into the trees. It provided some much needed shade. Dean parked the Impala on the gravel lot and silently warned the tiny pieces of doom away from the paint job.

The walk to the shop would have been more enjoyable if Dean hadn’t been seething. The plaza was connected by a wood planked walkway and many of the stores featured wide windows. The smell of homemade fudge floated on the air, making the place smell like sinful sugar, but Dean was too busy stomping to register these facts on anything more than a cursory level.

He threw open the door to the only painting shop in the area. A bell tinkled. No one was behind the small counter to the side, but within moments, Cas was walking out of a small swinging door towards the back, wiping his hands with a rag. His eyes lit up when they landed on Dean.

“Hello Dean,” he said warmly. Slowly, as his gaze roamed over Dean, his smile dropped. “What?”

“Just who the fuck are you,” Dean said. He made it sound more like an accusation than a question.

“I… what are you talking about?” he asked.

“You heard me, just who the fuck are you, and why are you painting symbols into shit that every single murdered victim owned?”

Castiel was visibly stunned. He fish lipped for a few moments. While Dean geared up to continue shouting, Sam silently clicked the door shut behind him and turned the lock.

“I don’t understand,” he finally said.

“Listen here you lying son of a bitch-“ Dean began, reaching for Castiel and fisting his shirt.

“Don’t,” Castiel growled back, shoving Dean backwards. Hard. He stumbled and fell into an easel. Sam just managed to stabilize it before the painting fell. “You want to know who I am? Just who the fuck are _you_? And why are you looking into the murders?”

Dean sneered. “Does that matter? You know that question doesn’t make you look any less guilty, right?” Castiel pulled his shoulders back and Dean took a breath. “God damn it Cas, I was with you all last night! Was I in danger?”

“Oh yeah, cuddling is very dangerous business. I almost drowned you in blankets,” Castiel responded with a heavy eye roll.

Outwardly, Dean was not impressed. Inwardly, on some level not boiling with anger, he appreciated Castiel’s sass.

He continued to fume. There were likely little trails of smoke wafting off of him by now.

“Look,” Sam said into the awkward silence. “We haven’t really met, I’m Sam by the way, but I don’t think you’re a murderer. And neither does Dean, he’s just a colossally stupid man child. But I promise, we are here to solve those murders and we know you’re involved somehow.”

Castiel measured Sam carefully before sighing. He crossed his arms. “I really don’t know anything, and I’m not sure you’d believe me if I explained the symbols.”

“Try me,” Dean said gruffly.

“We’re not your average Joe,” Sam added helpfully.

A customer knocked at the door. Unfortunately for Sam, as was the case with most of the complex, the wall was mostly windows and they could see everyone inside. Castiel quickly unlocked the door and let the older gentleman in.

“My apologies Mr. Peters,” he said. “I have your painting back here.”

Castiel moved behind the counter while Mr. Peters looked at Sam and Dean questionably. Their rough jeans and worn plaid layers didn’t exactly fit in the well-lit, exquisitely gilded art gallery. Castiel bent behind the counter and came back up with a medium sized landscape. Dean could make out the symbols layered in the paint. Then again, he noted, most of the paintings in the shop seemed to have them.

“If it’s to your satisfaction, you owe one hundred and fifty,” Castiel told Mr. Peters.

Mr. Peters nodded, commented on how wonderfully Castiel had captured the fall period of the mountains, and handed over two hundred.

“You under charge, dear boy,” he said as he turned for the door. “I know it’s made you popular with the locals, but you need to eat.”

“Stay safe, Mr. Peters,” Castiel said just before the door clicked shut. He remained behind the counter, one hand on the glass top, staring at nothing in particular. Finally, he took a breath. “There’s a dark spirit in Gatlinburg,” he said. “I can feel it. I don’t know why or how. I don’t even know how I knew those symbols.” Castiel looked up. “They’re protective symbols. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m doing my best to keep these people safe.” A dark shadow passed over his face. “It’s not enough.”

It sounded slightly insane, but Dean believed him. He couldn’t help it. Castiel had shown the same signs of concern and despair before. He wasn’t hurting anyone, at least not voluntarily.

“How do you know they’re protective if you don’t know what they are?” Dean asked.

Castiel looked to Dean and met his eyes for the first time in quite a while. For a moment, just one moment, Dean forgot about everything but the beauty of two pools of blue eyes. Then reality was back. Castiel blinked. “I looked them up,” he said. “They’re Enochian.”

Dean sucked in a breath. “Angel language,” he said.

Castiel nodded. “Yes.” He squinted his eyes. “Your turn. Who are you? Feds? Why are you involved in a backwater town’s murders, and why didn’t you bat a long pretty eyelash at my story?”

“We’re not feds,” Sam explained. “We uh. We’re independent contractors that specialize in-“

“We hunt ghosts and shit,” Dean said.

Castiel blinked several times. “I see I wasn’t the only one hiding things last night.”

Dean blushed. Castiel had a point and he hated it.

“You have no idea how you sense this spirit?” Sam asked. “Are you a psychic or…” Sam trailed off as Castiel shook his head.

“No, I don’t think so. I have no idea, but I think I’d know by now if I was psychic,” Castiel explained. “I woke up here about five years ago with no memory. No knowledge of most things, really. I… spoke stiffly, didn’t smile. It was difficult. Mr. Gregors took me in and taught me how to paint. I acclimated after that.”

“You’ve only been painting for a few years?”

Castiel shrugged. “I learned fast.”

“Huh,” Dean said. “I’d say. I’m still on stick figures.” Castiel smiled, and with it, the ice of the last ten minutes melted.

Sam coughed from behind Dean.

“Not that I’m not glad you two have made up and are already back to shameless flirting, but I have one more question,” Sam said. “Do you have any idea how you know who is being targeted? Are they connected somehow?”

Castiel shook his head. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I just sense it. They come in and make a request or a purchase and I can feel it.” He banged a fist on the counter. “And there’s nothing I can do. Maybe if we-“

“Hey,” Dean cut him off. “No ‘we.’ This is our thing. You’ll just get yourself hurt.” It wasn’t meant to be offensive, but Dean could tell by the way Castiel went rigid that it was taken as such.

Fortunately for Dean, that’s when the door to the back rang again. A middle aged man, average build with pale skin and light colored hair, stepped out.

“Castiel?” he asked. The man had a slight accent, different from the mix of Southern twang and Mid-Western proper that made up Gatlinburg’s sound.

“I’ll be right back Mr. Gregors, just helping these customers find Town Hall,” he explained.

Mr. Gregors glanced at Dean and Sam, giving them a quick evaluating, and somehow disapproving, once over before slinking back off to wherever he had come from. Castiel closed his eyes and took a deep, steadying breath.

“You should go,” he finally said.

“Right,” Dean said reluctantly. He knew that they were at the point in the conversation where he should go, that Castiel’s boss was waiting for him. He was still reluctant to leave. Castiel had just become a bit of a mystery, and Dean wanted to figure him out. He had a thousand more questions to ask.

Right now though, Castiel’s emotions weren’t a mystery. He was angry and feeling useless. Dean would feel the same way if it was him. “Look,” Dean added, “You’re helping by being here, painting wards. Just. Call, if you think of something, or someone comes in that makes your spidey senses tingle.”

Castiel nodded without meeting Dean’s eye before turning and heading sharply for the back. He was gone before Dean and Sam were.

Dean started his Baby and sat for a moment before banging his head straight into the steering wheel.

“If it helps, I really don’t think he’s a bad guy,” Sam said. “He’s beating himself up because he can’t save everyone.”

Dean rocked his head from side to side, feeling the rubber of the wheel dip under the pressure. He couldn’t tell Sam that he’d never thought Castiel was killing people no matter how suspicious the evidence was at the time. Couldn’t tell Sam that he wanted to go back inside, toss Castiel over his shoulder, and throw him in the back seat of the Impala. Couldn’t tell Sam that he was right, he spent the entire evening with a guy he didn’t know, a guy that doesn’t really know himself, a guy that could have seriously hurt him, and it was dumb. Couldn’t tell Sam that he didn’t care because his gut said it was right.

He sighed and started the car.

“Where to Samsquatch?” Dean asked. “You think Cas was trying to tell us something when he mentioned Town Hall?”

Sam’s face turned thoughtful. “I think he would have told us if he knew something,” Sam said.

“Yeah but the guy doesn’t have his memories and is painting sigils and crap that he doesn’t even know. Maybe he knows something that he doesn’t know he knows,” Dean explained.

Sam brought his right hand up and palmed his entire face with it.

“What?” Dean asked defensively. “It’s good logic.”

“It is. I’m just lamenting that neither of us will have children to pass our Winchester logic onto,” Sam answered. He waved his other hand, indicating that Dean should drive. “To Town Hall.”

It wasn’t, they’d soon discover, a very far drive to the Gatlinburg Town Hall. It was on Parkway on the way back to their motel. Getting there was cake. The problem was that once they were in the door, they had no idea what they had come for.

The building was surprisingly small, squat with a black roof, and stone pillars. It was almost out of place in that it wasn’t rugged and a little worn. Not that it was anything fancy, in fact, they would have missed it had Sam not walked past it the night before.

The inside was a similar quality. Wooden beams, big windows. It was both airy and warm, incredibly welcoming. They had the impression the place could be very helpful. If only they knew what they needed.

“Okay,” Sam said, drawing it out. “So, what kind of records are kept in town halls?”

“Marriage certificates? Wills?” Dean proposed, looking around. “Birth certificates?”

“Yeah, maybe,” Sam responded. “Sometimes they’re kept off-site though, especially with a place this small.”

The clack of high heeled shoes approached them and a female voice came from behind. “Can I help you boys?” she asked.

The woman was in her 50’s with red hair that was trying hard to reach out for the humidity. She had it under control with a couple of carefully pinned clips. Her black blazer and skirt were nice, but nothing fancy, and spoke of someone who was well put together, but not pompous about it. She extended a hand to Sam.

“Catherine Ogle, City Manager,” she said as Sam shook. Dean also returned the handshake. “You look a little lost.”

“Yeah,” Dean replied, “Just a little. We, um. We have some family that came from Gatlinburg and we were just hoping to look them up.”

Sam shot him a slightly worried look, the kind he usually gives when he feels the lies are about to get too deep.

Catherine raised her eyebrows. “I apologize, you just don’t look like genealogy buffs.”

“Amateurs,” Dean clarified with a charming smile. He slapped Sam on the back. “Well, except for this guy. He just eats it up.”

Ah, Sam’s bitch-face. It just wasn’t a case until he provoked at least one.

Catherine nodded her understanding. “Of course. I hate to tell you though, we don’t keep any of the records here. They’re all in Sevierville.”

It took Dean a minute to realize what she was talking about. He’d seen the signs, they’d driven through Sevierville on the way in, but he had no idea it was pronounced that way. Severe-ville. Probably an old spelling error.

“Thanks,” Sam responded. “Guess we’ll make a trip.”

He turned to leave, but Catherine tagged on, “Most of the records are online though. If your motel has a decent wi-fi connection of course.” She was smiling, friendly and open. “Here.” Catherine grabbed a business card and a pen from a nearby coffee table and scribbled down a URL. “I’d start there before fighting Pigeon Forge traffic.”

“Great,” Sam said, reading the address. “Thanks, that’s very helpful.”

“I do what I can,” Catherine replied with another smile. She turned on her heels and headed down a long hallway. At the end of it, Dean could just make out a vending machine.

“Dude,” Dean said, catching a plaque on the wall with her name on it. “She’s been city manager for 25 years.”

Sam flipped the card in his fingers a few times. “I can see why.” He slid the card into his pocket. “C’mon, let’s get back to the room. I have a feeling about this.”

The motel was less than five minutes away, and Sam was firing up his laptop before Dean could even peel off his first layer of plaid. He felt disgusting. The humidity, the heat, the bugs that came with both. He told Sam he was going to take a shower while Sam looked up the victims. Sam waved his acknowledgment.

The shower was perfect as it washed away the sweat of the previous day. He hadn’t even had time to change from when Cas dropped him off at his car to when he met up with Sam at breakfast. The steam bordered on too hot and too much, especially after the heat outside, but any discomfort from the heat of the water was quickly forgotten as he decided to take advantage of this private moment. Dean lightly took his cock in hand and teased himself into full hardness.

He didn’t regret that he and Cas had not gone further the night before, not much anyway, but it had left him feeling a little on edge. The man was hot and despite the issues of today, Dean was still insanely attracted to him, and they’d made out off and on all night without actually getting off. It was… well, kind of stupidly sweet actually, and he spent all day feeling like a 15 year old with a crush. To like a person so deeply but not sleep with them right away, it was a new experience. One Dean thought he might be enjoying.

Especially with the way his orgasm was creeping up. He’d discovered long ago that delayed gratification was one way to make an orgasm more intense, but Dean didn’t normally have the patience for it. Today, as he slowly slid his fist down his length and back to the tip, feeling the orgasm from the day before bubbling below the surface, he was reminded of the appeal.

He thumbed over the head before stilling his hand. He let the tremors in his blood calm, letting the immediacy of the orgasm pass, before he wrapped his hand around his cock again and stroked himself just as slowly as before. Oh yes, this was going to be intense.

He let himself picture two perfectly blue eyes, let his mind recall the pressure of Castiel’s toned body pressed into his, the way his slim digits had run through his hair. He let his mind wander, imagining those fingers elsewhere, sliding further, reaching his hole. Lube and skin and heat and a careful press. A cock –Cut? Uncut?- pushing into him-

An orgasm ripped through his body so fast and suddenly that Dean gasped at the shock of it. His left hand found the shower wall to hold his weight up while his cock throbbed in his other hand, pushing out semen that fell to the shower floor and then spiraled down the drain with the now lukewarm water.

“Oh fuck,” he murmured once he had regained his breath.

Dean stepped carefully out of the tub, his legs still feeling a little weak. He reached for a towel and wiped some of the moisture off his skin before using a hand to wipe at the glass of the mirror. He watched his reflection run his hands over his hair and smile. He looked happier than he had in a while, better. Nothing like having an intense orgasm to take the tension away. The bags under his eyes were softer and his shoulders lacked a hard edge they normally had. The mysterious handprint scar on his shoulder was still there though, mocking him, reminding him of the worst time of his life.

He wrapped a towel around his waist and headed into the main room to find some clothes.

“Find anything?” he asked to Sam as he stepped out of the bathroom.

Sam frowned. “I’m not sure yet.” Which was Sam-speak for ‘I may be onto something, leave me alone and ask me later.’

Dean tugged on some boxers and jeans and grabbed a new black undershirt with a short sleeved plaid shirt overtop. He didn’t own many that were short-sleeved, but he was currently glad he did. After applying some deodorant and brushing his teeth, Sam was still buried in his laptop.

 _Movie time_ , he thought.

Dean clicked on the TV and was not overly impressed to see it carried a total of five channels. But one of them was showing The Fifth Element, so he couldn’t complain too much. Dean drew the curtain shut, the late afternoon light causing some glare, and got himself into movie viewing position on the bed. He planned on spending the couple of hours trying to decide if he was more attracted to Bruce Willis or Milla Jovovich. It was something he’d never let himself contemplate before and it was freeing to get to do it now.

He was just about ready to declare that a threesome would be best when Sam made a sound.

“You find something?” Dean asked.

“Yeah, I think so,” Sam responded. Dean reluctantly clicked off the TV and sat up. “The vics. Get this. I think they’re all related.” Dean opened his mouth to question that, but Sam cut him off. “It’s hard to say cause there was a fire back in 1856 in the courthouse and some records were lost, so I can’t verify for all six vics, but five of them count Thomas Ogle as their great-great-great-great-grandfather.

“Ogle,” Dean said, mulling over the name. “Like Catherine-“

“Yeah, exactly like Catherine Ogle,” Sam said. “She married into the name, but there’s no doubt her husband goes all the way back to Thomas Ogle as well.”

“What’s with this Ogle guy?” Dean asked.

“He founded Gatlinburg.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So why is something hunting off Ogles? Are they cursed?” Dean asked. He was glad they had a lead, but it unfortunately wasn’t _leading_ to much.

Sam shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe we should revisit the murder sites now that we know.”

“Or check out Ogle’s grave.”

Sam nodded in agreement. 

“Which-“ Dean began to ask, but he was cut off by his cellphone blaring _Back in Black._ He cautiously picked up his phone and looked at the number. It was Castiel.

“Dean,” Castiel said the second the line was picked up. “Daniel Ogle. He was in today. I felt the… the presence on him. In force. I think he might be next. Soon, probably tonight. Oh god Dean, what if-“

“Hey, hey Cas, it’s okay, I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Dean replied. “Calm down, you did the right thing. We’ll go check it out, okay? You stay put. We’ll call if we need you.”

“Dean-“ Castiel began to protest.

“Cas.”

There was a loud sigh. “Fine,” Castiel agreed. “But Dean?”

“Yeah?”

“Stay safe,” Castiel said, promptly cutting the call off. He could still use a little work in the social niceties department. Dude sucked at goodbyes.

Dean stared at his phone for a moment before looking up to Sam, who was waiting patiently. “Cas says Daniel Ogle may be next. Like, tonight, next.”

Sam’s response was given in the form of keyboard clacking. “Yeah, that figures, he’s Catherine’s husband,” Sam said. “Give me a sec, I should be able to hack an address.”

“That’s my bro,” Dean said with pride.

“You do realize that’s kind of fucked up,” Sam said, still typing at the keyboard. “Got it, she’s back in Sevierville. “ He set the laptop to the side and stood up with a stretch, popping his shoulder. “Better hit the road, it’s a decent drive and we’re going to have to stop for stakeout supplies.”

They picked up a bunch of beef jerky and a twelve pack of Mountain Dew before making the trek up the windy, forest cloaked road that connects Gatlinburg to Pigeon Forge, and then Sevierville beyond that. The acid yellow Dew wasn’t what Dean’s liver was craving, but if Cas was right about something being after Daniel, they could be watching the place all night long.

The neighborhood the City Manager lived in was, blessedly, a subdivision. As far as Dean could tell, staking out a house in the city of Gatlinburg and remaining inconspicuous would have been very difficult to do, given that most houses are on mountain roads and are few and far in between. They would have had to park the car quite a distance out and walk to a viewable, concealed position. An apartment complex would have been worse, at least in terms of visibility inside. In a subdivision, they can blend in with the other cars parked on the street and keep a decent eye on the house. Fortunately, city managers apparently don’t have to live in the city they manage, as Sam explained in agonizing depth on the drive up.

They got a spot just a hair down from the house, one where they could still see into a few of the windows, and hear if anything went tits up. It was hard to imagine anything happening though. It was a small, quiet subdivision with middle class, two story homes, all less than a decade old. Most featured brick on the bottom and siding on the second story. The city manager’s house had a flat lawn with well-maintained flowerbeds. Dean felt a strong need to transplant a dandelion, just to give it a little flair.

But, as he was well aware, the supernatural don’t see money. And they definitely don’t care if you’re boring or not.

There was nothing suspicious in the house for hours. Catherine and Daniel watched some TV and snuggled a bit, which Dean made a point to roll his eyes over for Sam’s sake, even though he secretly thought that it was sweet that they still had some romance going. His thoughts drifted to Cas and the night before, and he let himself indulge for a bit, thinking about the man. After all, there was nothing happening and Sam was paying attention to the house.

Castiel was strange, and his mysterious past was stranger. The fact that Dean felt somehow connected to it didn’t help any. But he also couldn’t help feeling connected to the man himself, like he was someone important and special to him, even though he’d only known him a day. He was a little dorky, but passionate and brave.  He took a punch like he was made of brick, and could turn around the next day and paint the most beautiful scenery. He was intriguing.

Inside the house, Catherine Ogle was kissing her husband and heading upstairs, presumably to bed. Daniel relaxed even further into the couch, happy and content, and close to drifting off.

Dean imagined kissing Castiel goodnight before heading to bed and he couldn’t decide if the domesticity of it made his teeth ache, or if he ached to have it. It was not a comfortable debate. Why was he even thinking like this?

Dean was still lost in thought when Sam slapped the back of his hand to his chest.

“Hey man, something’s happening,” he said.

Lights were flickering as if in a power surge, but it was only happening to the Ogle household. Sam and Dean were already bolting from the car, grabbing the shotgun rifle and crowbar, when a rugged old man appeared in the living room.

A quick try of the knob revealed it was locked, so Dean kicked the door in, sending wood splinters flying. Daniel Ogle bolted upright from his sleep. He took one look at the ghost coming towards him with an axe and screamed.

The ghost took a swing with the weapon he had clearly picked up on the property and Daniel scrabbled over the couch and narrowly missed the blow. Dean hollered a “duck” before aiming the shotgun and firing. The ghost fizzled and disappeared.

There was a tense moment of silence in which Catherine appeared at the top of the stairs with her own rifle.

“Just what the hell are you two doing-“

She was cut off as the ghost reappeared. A second shot was fired and a lamp shattered, the shards flying, but the trigger wasn’t pulled by Dean. Catherine had attempted to shoot the ghost. Naturally, the bullet passed right through without effect, but the fact that she had tried was kind of badass.

As the ghost made for Daniel again, Sam swung the crowbar and the spirit once again flickered out of the room.

There were footsteps behind Dean as someone else came running into the house. He turned to see Cas cross the splintered mess on the floor as the ghost reappeared. Castiel’s chin dropped at the sight, but before Dean could turn to follow his line of sight, Sam was swinging again and the ghost dissipated inches away from Dean.

“We needed a better plan!” Sam shouted as Catherine took the pause in action to run to her husband.

The ghost flickered back into sight and Dean raised his shotgun. He hesitated as Castiel began shouting next to him in a language that sounded familiar.

“In nomine deleo virtutes universi positivum!"

 It was nothing Dean had ever heard before, so he was doubly shocked when the ghost flickered once, twice, and then screamed in frustration just before disappearing. 

No one moved for a solid minute. 

“I think it’s gone,” Daniel said from the floor. 

“Famous last words, pal,” Dean said to him. “Take it from a pro.” 

There was a tense moment filled with the sound of everyone catching their breath. 

“A pro?” Catherine finally said. “So you’re ghost hunters?” 

“Yes,” Sam responded. “Are you okay?” he asked. While Sam moved to see if they needed help, Dean turned to Castiel, who was touching two fingers to his lips, like he didn’t think the pink, plush things belonged to him. 

He felt Dean’s eyes on him and answered before Dean had even asked. “No, I have no idea where that came from,” Castiel said, looking up. “I don’t even know what I said.” 

Dean nodded his understanding. That wasn’t the part he was concerned with, as he was getting used to the fact that Castiel knew things and no one knew how or why. There were more pressing questions. 

“What are you doing here, Cas?” Dean demanded quietly, shooting a look to Catherine and Daniel. He grabbed Castiel’s arm and pulled him outside to gain some privacy on the front lawn. “I told you to stay out of this.” 

Castiel wrenched his arm back and crossed them defiantly. “You aren’t my commander, Dean,” Castiel said stubbornly. “I couldn’t just let something bad happen, not when I knew for once not only who but when.” 

“You could have gotten yourself killed!” Dean hissed.

“I saved _your_ ass,” Cas retaliated.

Dean had nothing to say to that, so he crossed his arms instead. They stood staring at each other for a good couple of minutes before Sam called out to them, wanting Dean back inside.

“You. Go home,” Dean ordered with a pointed finger.

Castiel rolled his eyes, reached for Dean’s outer shirt’s collar, and pulled him into a deep, sinful kiss, and pushing him back just as suddenly. “You’re lucky you’re hot when you’re giving orders,” Castiel said.

He didn’t let Dean get another word in. Just turned and stomped off down the street in the direction opposite of the Impala.

Dean sighed and ran a hand over his face, trying to compose himself before stepping back inside.

“Hey,” Sam greeted him. He was standing next to the couch where Daniel was now sitting with a blanket wrapped tightly around himself. Catherine was standing behind the couch, a comforting hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “Catherine has something you should hear.”

She took a deep breath. “Sam says this ghost is after decedents from Thomas Ogle. Now, I didn’t recognize his face or anything, but the only spirit that would have a beef with Ogle’s would be Radford Gatlin.”

“History indicates he was an ugly, mean son of a bitch when he was alive,” Sam added on.

“The feud between the Ogles and Gatlins would still be going on if it wasn’t for the fact that all the Gatlin’s died off,” Catherine said with a nod. “I’m surprised you didn’t encounter that yet, with your research.”

Sam glanced to Dean before answering. “We haven’t been working on this case that long.”

Catherine frowned. “Just solve it,” she said.

“You seem pretty steady for having just encountered a ghost,” Dean observed.

She laughed, a humorless, dry chuckle. “It’s Gatlinburg. We all believe in them,” she said. Dean remembered the conversations from the day before and knew she was right. But he also knew there was a difference between thinking you believed in them and actually encountering one for the first time. She was just one very stable woman. “With all of the mining accidents that have happened in these parts, it’s amazing we don’t see those things right left and center.”

“Right. Well, we can at least take care of Gatlin for you, now that we know who we’re up against,” Sam told her reassuringly. “We’ll let you get back to...” He trailed off and waved a hand at Daniel.

They left the house and made straight for the car, Dean checking to make sure Castiel wasn’t still hanging around.

“Now the question is,” Sam asked as they slid into the Impala and clicked the doors shut, “is whether we go grave digging right now, or wait till tomorrow night.”

Dean groaned. “Last thing I want to do right now,” he confessed. “But if we got started now we could get the thing unearthed and burned before sun up. Can you find the plot on your fancy phone, geek boy?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, I can do that,” he responded, pulling his phone out. “So. What was up with Cas?”

The wheels crunched gravel as Dean pulled out of his parking spot on the street. He knocked a thumb on the steering wheel a few times before answering. “Same as before. No memory of how he knew that spell or incantation or-“

“It was a banishing spell in Latin, as far as I could tell,” Sam provided.

Dean snorted. “Well apparently he knows Latin then. Seriously though, he has no memory and a freaking death wish. I could have picked better.”

“He saved our asses. You could have picked worse.”

Dean shot Sam a look and didn’t speak again until they got to the grave site.

The grave site was ancient. At least as far as Dean was concerned, nearly 200 years old counted as ancient. The tombstones were crumbling, proof that it’s not only bodies that go from dust to dust. Everything has a time sentence. The ivy and weeds seemed to be an exception, growing wild and carefree. No one seemed much concerned with the ancient plot of land, a space that only the dead frequented.

The night was dark and the ground was damp, soaking in the humidity from the air. Though there had been plenty of ambient and moon brought light back in Sevierville, the surrounding trees blocked most of the natural light, and there wasn’t much artificial to be found.

They took turns, one manning the flashlight while the other dug. Digging up 6 feet of earth was no picnic and took a lot of time and backbreaking labor, so it helped to switch off when it was too dark to dig together. It was supposed to be split fifty-fifty, but Dean took a little extra of the burden off of Sam and tried to hide the fact that he was doing so by bitching that it was the other way around. He was pretty sure Sam saw through it, but that’s just how they worked.

Six feet in, and they hadn’t hit anything. Which was not necessarily unusual, so they kept digging. And digging. Orange was just beginning to crest the horizon by the time they admitted defeat. Nine feet deep and nothing.

“Damn,” Dean said, throwing the shovel down. “It’s never that simple, is it? Why can’t we just once get an easy case?” He moved to the edge of their significant hole and looked up to Sam. He chucked the shovel up and over the edge and tugged on the rope they’d tossed down earlier to help with getting in and out of their massive crater. “Good?”

“Yeah,” Sam replied. “I got you.”

Dean was glad they kept a pair of gloves in the trunk, or he’d be suffering severe rope burn. He climbed his way out of a, blessedly, much shallower and less demonic pit than the famous one, and turned to stare back down at it.

“Well,” Sam said. “Guess we have some more digging up to do on Gatlin.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “You and puns do not mix,” Dean said. He pulled the rope out of the hole in the ground, winding it back up. Sam grabbed the shovel and started chucking dirt back in the mock grave.

“I thought it was funny,” Sam said. He did not get a response.

Dean cracked his back twice before turning and taking the rope back to the Impala. Fortunately, refilling a hole was much faster than digging it out, and Sam already had a foot filled back in by the time Dean made it back with the second shovel. Together, they made the area look as inconspicuous as possible. Given that no one seemed to check this grave yard any more, Dean wasn’t that worried about someone knocking on their door, looking for grave robbers.

They were finished by the time the sun was properly “risen” and slid back into Baby’s comforting interior. They were too exhausted to talk much on the drive back and even Dean was tired enough that stopping for breakfast sounded like too much work. They both chucked their dirty jeans and shirts and crawled into bed in boxers, intent on passing out. The room was fighting against the plan, as it contained almost nothing to block the sun coming in, just a plain strip of curtain fabric covering only the top of the window. It had some name that Dean was too tired to try to remember. He grabbed a pillow and pulled it over his head, while Sam threw an arm across his eyes. They were out in seconds.

The first thing Dean was consciously aware of was the sound of Sam tapping on his keyboard. He groaned and rolled over.

“I think we should ask Cas if he knows anything,” Sam said to Dean’s back. Apparently, he took groans and rolling over as a sign that his brother was awake and it was time to get to work.

“Nnng?” Dean responded.

“I just mean, he’s been helpful so far. He might know something,” Sam explained. “He might know something he doesn’t know he knows.”

“I taught you well,” Dean said into his pillow. “What time is it?”

“Noon.”

Dean groaned again. Five hours of sleep. Well it was more than his average, that was something. After a full night of manual labor though, he could have used a few more.

“Shower,” Dean said, dragging his limbs out of bed. “Food. Cas.”

“Good to know where he falls on your priority list,” Sam said. Dean shot him a look and was met with a pair of amused, raised eyebrows. This, this was why he never tells Sam about hook ups.

He clambered into the shower and only briefly considered whacking off. He was still too exhausted to be in the mood for it, so he washed off the grime of the previous day thoroughly and efficiently before crawling back out and dressing just as quickly. He saw a towel on Sam’s bed and assumed he’d already showered.

“Ready?” Dean asked. Sam shut his laptop lid, grabbed his phone, and they were on their way.

They went to the same place they had the day before to grab some breakfast, and given that they had slept until noon, Dean was immensely grateful they were open until two pm. Food was shoveled in, coffee was slugged back, and they were back in the car within the hour.

Castiel was unlocking the door to his shop when they approached. He had a doggy bag of food in his hand and his keys in the other. He was wearing jeans that featured a few paint splatters, and had opted for a casual grey and currently paint free t-shirt that said AC/DC across the front, and with the heat, it was clinging to his skin like a second one.  Dean swallowed hard, hoping it would take the inappropriately timed arousal with it.

“Came to say goodbye?” Castiel asked, glancing at Dean before looking away. “You didn’t strike me as the type.”

He was wounded. It hadn’t occurred to Dean that after the adventure at the Ogle’s household, Cas might have believed they had wrapped up the case and left town. Dean’s hand was out, grabbing Castiel’s bicep before he commanded it to. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words turned seamlessly into another staring competition that was only interrupted when Sam coughed.

“Not to interrupt whatever that was, but no, we’re not leaving,” Sam said. “We hit a snag. Hoped you could help.”

Castiel crossed his arms and Dean’s hand slid off. The doggy bag crinkled with the motion. “Oh really. Dean has done nothing but push me away and now you need my help?”

“Don’t be an ass,” Dean said with an eye roll. “You have no idea what you’re doing. I was protecting you.”

“My hero,” Cas responded with dripping sarcasm.

Sam coughed again. “Gatlin. We’re pretty sure he’s the ghost but his grave was empty.”

Castiel’s eyebrows raised. “Of course it was,” he finally said. He slid the keys back into the lock and turned. He went straight inside, holding the door open for Dean and Sam to follow. When neither brother asked further questions, he continued, “Gatlin’s remains were moved to a private grave site in the mountains. It was long ago and the records went up in a fire, but legend says some distant relatives wanted his remains further away from the town that had ostracized him.”

“You know a lot about this,” Dean said with a narrowed eye. “Why didn’t you tell us any of this sooner?”

Two blue eyes blinked twice. “You didn’t ask. And I didn’t know you were after Gatlin.”

“Why didn’t Catherine Ogle tell us this last night when she told us about Gatlin?” Dean further probed.

“Did she know you’d be going to his grave?” Castiel countered. Dean said nothing. “Mmmm,” Castiel said, his point made. They both knew it and Dean refused to admit it.

Castiel stepped away and put the doggy bag on the counter before turning back around.

“So why did Google tell me his grave was at the old spot?” Sam interrupted after a terse pause.

Castiel gave Sam a flat look that made _Dean_ feel stupid. “Because it’s _Gatlinburg_. The city was a speck until ten years ago. The internet doesn’t know everything, Sam, especially something Gatlinburg intentionally does not advertise.” Castiel shifted on his feet before venturing, “I’ll take you to the right site.”

“Cas, no,” Dean said quickly. “Just tell us where it is.”

“Dean, yes,” Castiel replied. “You aren’t cutting me out again.”

Dean opened his mouth twice and before finally saying, “We could ask someone else.”

Castiel rolled his eyes and crossed his arms. “Yes, you could. They wouldn’t know the situation like I do. And they wouldn’t be as helpful as I’ve been.”

“Dean,” Sam interjected, taking him by the elbow and pulling him roughly two steps back. “He’s got a point. He saved our asses last night.”

“He’s a civilian, Sam!” Dean hissed back in a low breath, as if Cas couldn’t totally hear them anyway.

“And we’ve let less capable civilians help us before. Maybe you need to ask yourself why you’re being so protective here,” Sam said.

Dean looked over to Cas, his lithe form leaning on the counter now, his arms crossed. Dean licked his lips before glancing back to Sam. He wanted to say he had no idea what Sam was talking about, but it wasn’t the truth. He was more emotionally invested in Castiel than made any rational sense.

He broke away from Sam, striding back towards Cas. “Okay, fine,” Dean said, “But we call the shots. We order, you obey. If we say duck, you ask how low.”

Castiel’s eyebrow raised. “Yes sir,” he responded, only a little sarcastically, straightening up. “Mr. Gregors, your lunch is on the counter!” he hollered back before striding straight for the door, taking his keys out. Mr. Gregors must not like running the shop on his own.

As Castiel strode past Dean, he whispered, “And I _know_ how low.”

Red blossomed on Dean’s cheeks and it had nothing to do with the heat.

They followed Castiel out the door and waited while he locked it. Castiel slid into the back seat of the Impala without complaint. He had Dean drive back down Glades and out to Parkway, heading west, towards one of the entrances to the Smokies. The scenery changed quite drastically as they passed through the light where Parkway changed from a north-south road, to Parkway East and the part of Parkway that continued west.

The area was like a tourist trap, only with very few tourists. An aquarium, Ripley’s Believe it or Not, tons of restaurants, bars, arcades, mini golf, and-

“Moonshine?!” Dean asked. “What the hell is all this?”

“Moonshine is hard liquor, and given how fast you went through my whiskey, I have some recommendations,” Cas said from the back. “The rest of this is Gatlinburg. Downtown, anyway. Normally it’s full of people and traffic is hell, but the murders have scared off tourism.”

“Hmm,” Dean replied, understanding. “Well, we’ll salt and burn this mother and your town can go back to snot nosed brats running down the streets.”

Cas snorted. “My hero?”

Dean glanced in the mirror. Cas was smirking. Dean smiled back, fully aware it was entirely for his own benefit as Cas couldn’t see his face.

The strip ended as suddenly as it had started and they were once again on forest lined roads. Castiel had Dean continue for a ways, passing many overlook spots that, Dean had a feeling, normally had a few more cars parked at them. The views that he glanced at as he drove were breathtaking.

“You’ll want to stop at the overlook up ahead,” Cas said, leaning over the seat to point. “We’ll walk from there.”

The gravel crunched as Dean pulled his Baby off the road and into the tiny parking area. He pulled the latch for the trunk and he and Sam made for the supplies, filling up an old beat up backpack with as much of the smaller supplies as possible. He heard more than saw Cas freeze when his eyes fell on the contents of the trunk.

“I promise we’re not axe murderers,” Dean mumbled, not looking up.

Cas didn’t reply right away. Finally, he stepped up and grabbed three bottles of water out of the twelve pack they keep in the back. “It’s going to be hot up there,” he explained.

Dean honestly had not considered that, and immediately felt like a rookie. They weren’t used to digging up graves in the middle of the day, but he should have still considered the environmental factors. At least Cas thought to grab the water.

The path was nearly unrecognizable. Dean was silently grateful that they had brought Cas along instead of demanding a location out of him. He wasn’t sure he could have found the trailhead on his own, the overgrowth was so thick.

In a way, the overgrowth was necessary, as the ground was soft and slippery. Because the trees blocked out so much of the sunlight, and the humidity was so high, everything under the leafy canopy stayed damp and misty. The weeds and various fauna they were stomping on provided some needed traction, as even their boots weren’t quite enough.

Dean was panting after a good hour and a half of climbing, taking on the extra weight of the backpack and a shotgun. Cas had a crowbar, while Sam manned the shovel, which he was using as a walking stick as needed, and man, Dean really got screwed on that arrangement.

“Do you know how much longer, Cas?” Dean asked. They were getting higher up the mountain side and the air was getting thin. He paused and leaned against a tree. Sam was panting as well and leaned against his own bark coated support.

“I’ve never been,” Castiel admitted in a smooth tone. He was not remotely winded. Well, that figured, he looked like a runner or something. “I’ve never had occasion to go all the way up the path. But I can’t imagine it’s much further.”

Not much further would turn out to be another hour of hiking. The bramble thinned out and they entered a very small clearing with an object in the middle that was barely recognizable as a tombstone.  The ground was mostly void of rogue plant life, just some overgrown grass and a few weeds. Someone still came up here, or the whole area would look just like the forest around it. What added an even odder touch though was the presence of two melted candle nubs on top of the gravestone.

“Teens,” Castiel supplied. “They’re fascinated with the area, come up here on dares.” He made a face. “Actually, they think it’s haunted.”

Dean turned and gave him a flat look. “Really? And you never thought that was relevant before?”

“People think half of Gatlinburg is haunted, and as I said, you never told me you were looking for a ghost,” Cas explained. But his eyes fell to the side and he look a little ashamed nonetheless. “Though that does seem like a more plausible reason for why the grave was moved. Maybe Gatlin has always been restless.”

Sam grunted. “That could be, but then why did he get all active all of a sudden?”

Silence was his only answer.

“Well, in any case, we have the right spot now,” Dean finally said. He handed Cas the crowbar and shotgun. “You know how to shoot?” Castiel nodded. “Good. Anything pop up while we’re digging, you shoot it.”

“Or try that spell of yours,” Sam added on.

Dean took the shovel and made for the area closest to the tombstone, while Sam started a few feet down.

“I doubt the spell will work. I think it’s meant for homes,” Castiel said, watching them break ground. “Speaking of, until last night, I was under the impression munition does not work.”

“It doesn’t,” Sam responded. “That’s got salt rounds in it, which ghosts are vulnerable to.”

“Though as you saw last night,” Dean said, “It’s not a permanent solution. So dig faster Sammy, this place gives me the creeps.”

He hit the ground and shoveled out a few more clods of Earth. It barely made a dent in how far they had to go. It would not have been his wish to dig up two graves in less than twenty four hours.

Castiel paced around the area, looking alert and wary. “Is it common for there to be problems while digging up a grave?” he asked.

Dean snorted and wiped his face on his sleeve. The clearing was wide enough that they were being pelted with the sun as well as dealing with the high humidity. He was _really_ glad Cas had grabbed the water. “Yeah,” Dean said. “Usually the spirit knows what’s up and comes at you. Even in death, there’s self-preservation.”

Sam shook his head. “Should have been our first clue Gatlin wasn’t at the other site.”

Castiel continued walking around the area, keeping guard as Sam and Dean dug. He offered twice to take over, but for some reason, Dean saw it as his and Sam’s burden and didn’t want Cas involved. A good man like him should not have to get knee deep in grave dirt.

Dirt flew over the edge of the rapidly growing hole and eventually, Cas squatted near the brink and watched, his eyes constantly on Dean. Dean could feel the gaze on him, even glanced up once or twice and met Castiel’s eye, but he kept staring.

“Cas, man, staring is creepy.”

“I can’t help it,” Castiel replied. “You’re beautiful. The way your muscles work, the way you seem to glow from the inside.”

Sam snorted. Dean ignored him and gave Cas a cheeky wide grin. “Well. It is a little hot,” Dean said, shrugging out of his outer shirt and tossing it to the side. He pulled his t-shirt over his head and it joined the other one. Castiel’s pupils went wide and his grin turned feral.

“Oh god,” Sam moaned from next to Dean. “You’re not going to have sex on grave dirt are you?”

“Pervert,” Dean said, turning to punch Sam harder than necessary in the shoulder.

Castiel sucked in a loud, deep breath. He was staring at Dean’s left shoulder. Dean was so used to living with it, he’d nearly forgotten about the handprint fried into his flesh. Of course Cas would be thrown by that.

He didn’t look scared though. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. Well the way most people looked when they saw a ghost. Haunted. Breath held tight, Cas stared at the mark like it meant something to him.

“Where…” he started, voice filled with gravel, “where did you get that?”

Dean glanced at the mark and shrugged. He started shoveling again as he answered, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“Try me,” Castiel said quickly.

Dean met Castiel’s gaze, evaluating. Somehow, he knew Castiel would actually believe him. Whether he wanted that information out there and between them, he hadn’t decided.

“Please,” Castiel added. He sounded like it would physically pain him if Dean didn’t tell him where the mark came from. It was important to him, and Dean was starting to get that. Maybe it _was_ important.

“Hell,” Dean said bluntly. Castiel sucked in surprised air. “I went to hell, Cas,” Dean explained, hitting the dirt with his shovel and tossing out another clump. “About five years ago, depending on how you count it. In the pit, almost 30 years had passed. And when I got back Earth-side, it had only been a few months and I had this. It would be awhile before some crazy dickbag ranting about the apocalypse would cross our paths and fill some of the missing pieces in.”

“Angels,” Castiel said, breathlessly.

Dean looked up sharply. “How the hell did you know that?”

“What else could be strong enough to pull you out of perdition?”

Dean stared at Cas for a long moment, gears turning, the picture starting to take form. When he’d been pulled out of hell, it was like he had a 10,000 piece puzzle and he didn’t even know what the picture was supposed to be. Uriel had put 3 corner pieces in place, and now, it was like the pieces were moving to the right areas of the board. Not quite a picture, not quite put together, but like it might be getting there.

“Cas-“

“Dean,” Sam said sharply, cutting him off. “I’m not hot anymore.” A snarky comment was on the tip of Dean’s tongue when he elaborated, “Either the Great Smokies developed air conditioning, or we’re about to have company.”

“Shit,” Dean mumbled. “Cas, look alive, stop staring at my arm.” He turned to Sam, “How much further?”

“Not much,” Sam said.

They shared a glance and without another word, they dug faster.

It was mere moments before the ghost flickered in.

Dean got a better look at him this time. Thin, tall, handle bar mustache and a cowboy hat, he wore a plain white shirt with jeans and worn boots. He looked mean and tough, just like the culture he was raised in.

He was making straight for Dean when Castiel hollered out a duck. Sam and Dean hit the bottom of the pit as a salt round went off above their heads.

“You were supposed to ask how low!” Castiel shouted to them. “But nearly six feet in the ground is probably far enough.”

“I’m involved with a sassy little shit,” Dean mumbled to himself, digging ever faster.

Sam guffawed, but didn’t comment, intent on getting to the casket as quick as possible.

When Gatlin rematerialized, he made it straight for Cas this time.  Castiel didn’t blink an eye and got another shot fired off just as Dean’s shovel went clank.

He looked at Sam and in tandem, they pitched the shovels over and started scrambling at the wood, pushing the remaining dirt off. They had just enough space to pull to the side and get the lid up before helping each other back out.

Castiel was running in circles. It would have been hilarious if he wasn’t being chased by a murderous ghost, who, in lieu of an axe, had picked up a shovel.

“The shots weren’t working,” Castiel said, still not panting as he jumped straight over the dug grave. “I’m trying distraction.”

What had Dean’s jaw dropping was that it was _working_. The ghost was barely keeping up with him. Only the supernatural could run as fast as, well, the supernatural.

“DEAN!” Sam hollered, “Move, you idiot! The salt and gasoline are in the bag!”

Dean forcefully shrugged himself out of his stupor and grabbed the bag off the ground. He took out the gasoline and handed the bag to Sam, who grabbed the salt while Dean began soaking the bones. Sam began salting just as Dean finished with the gas. He spared a glance to Cas, who was still out-running and out-maneuvering Gatlin.  Shrugging it off once again, he fished for the matches and lit one.

Well, he tried to light one. Only in the movies do they ever light right when you need them to. He kept pulling the match across the side of the box and only barely felt the sudden chill behind him.

“Nooo!” Castiel screamed from the other side of the grave, arm raised, palm out, as if reaching for Dean. He turned just in time to see Gatlin, behind him, bend over as if in pain.

“Dean!” Sam said. “For fuck’s sakes,” he mumbled as he grabbed the box from Dean’s hands, lit the match on the first try and tossed it in.

Gatlin went up in flames, the usual scream and dance, bursting out of existence.

Sam sighed, hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath, but Dean, Dean could barely move. He was staring at Cas through the fire, while Castiel stared at his hands in total shock. He looked up and met Dean’s eye.

“Cas?” Dean asked.

Castiel’s mouth fished open a couple of times, trying to bring words to shape. “Did I just hurt a ghost?” he asked, staring at his hand again, as if the thing had betrayed him. “How? How can I do that? What the hell am I?”

“Hey,” he said, moving around the grave, placing a stabilizing hand on Castiel’s shoulder. He was starting to freak out. “I don’t know, but I do know you’ve saved my ass twice now. And I know you cared about helping these people as much as we did, maybe even more. I know you’re a good guy, and that’s what matters. We’ll figure the rest out. I promise.”

Castiel looked at Dean like he couldn’t believe he was real. On the other side of the fire, Sam’s jaw had dropped. Dean supposed, given his track record, it was a little incredible. He typically didn’t see ghosts and monsters and the supernatural in shades of grey. They were all black.

Of course, then there were people like Missouri and Pamela. Maybe that’s why he could so easily believe Castiel was good too. Just a little weird, but that’s hardly a crime.

“That’s,” Cas began. He had to swallow before continuing. “You barely know me. Why-“

“You know why.”

He assumed Cas was going to ask why he would help him. And they both knew the surface-level answer to that question. He’d grown attached to Cas rather quickly. But they both also knew there was a deeper reason, a reason they hadn’t quite pieced together yet.

“Thank you,” Castiel said eventually. They didn’t notice how lost they were in the quiet gaze until Sam coughed. “Here,” Castiel said, reaching for the dropped bag and pulled out the bottles of water that Dean had completely forgotten about. They needed them, especially as the air temperature was impossibly even hotter with the fire going. Then Castiel poked his chest and added, “As much as it pains me to say this, you should put your shirt back on, you’re burning.”

“Thanks mom,” Dean said with an eye roll. He took a bottle to Sam, and thumped him twice on the shoulder, his way of acknowledging a job well done. His shirts were retrieved from the ground and fortunately had not picked up much dirt. In fact, they were significantly cleaner than if he’d been wearing them while digging.

Their tools were spread throughout the little area, and Sam and Cas helped retrieve them, getting them resituated in the bag. They took their time, knowing that they’d need to smother the fire and refill the grave before they left, and not wanting to do that until they were certain Gatlin was gone for good.

Still, Dean was tired, hot, and hungry, so he decided the fire had gone long enough and turned to start filling the pit back in. That’s when it happened.

It had been months since he’d had an episode, and it just figured it would happen with Cas there to witness it. Not that Dean had any control of the situation. As his eyes fell on the fire, panic started to rise. The licking flames, the heat, the smell of burning bone. He froze, his mind removing itself from current reality.

Most of the time, he does a pretty good job of forgetting hell. The memories he has, of being sliced and diced and burned to all eternity, should have traumatized him. But he’s had years of practice shoving the memories down, pretending hell had never happened. And it works pretty well, until something triggers it, and he’s back in the pit, terrified, frozen, panicking and unable to move or breathe. A weight was crushing his chest, he was going to die. No, he was already dead, this was worse. He was going to burn, be carved, tortured-

“Dean?” Castiel questioned, a hand falling gently on his shoulder.  It pulled him back to reality just enough to feel Cas go stiff too.

“Hey!” he heard Sam call as if from a distance. “Hey, snap out of it man.” Sam shook him hard, and that action was helping, grounding him, reminding him of where he was. “You’re fine, we’re fine. Everyone’s fine, you’re not in hell.” He slapped Dean across the face. Not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard enough to jar him. “Come on Dean, you’re freaking Cas out.”

Dean sucked in a shuddering breath, and looked sharply away from the fire. He slowly began to breathe again, bending over and sucking in air like a bagpipe.

“Hell,” he heard Cas say behind him, voice quiet, awed. “Dear god.”

“I don’t think God had much to do with it,” Dean wheezed.

Castiel frowned and put his hand on Dean’s back, patting and rubbing. “I suggest we get out of here,” Castiel said. “Once you catch your breath.”

“The fire-“ Dean began.

“It’ll burn out. The trees are far enough away to be safe,” Sam said. “Yeah it’s great to cover our tracks, but-“

“I can fill it in later if you’d like,” Castiel volunteered. “I’m done with this mountain for the day.”

Sam nodded his agreement and insisted on taking most of the heavy equipment. He took the bag and shotgun, tossing the crowbar to Castiel, and leaving Dean with only the shovel to man.  They were worried about him still. It was sweet. And annoying. He would have grumbled about being treated like a kid, but he was still a little off-footed and too tired to fight about it.

The path was only marginally easier going down than it was going up. It was still slippery, only, as their intent was to go with gravity, they had to fight just falling down the entire mountain slope. Dean picked his path carefully, following Sam's gigantic form, which was just behind Cas, leading the way again.

It could have been peaceful if it wasn’t so damn hot and they weren’t trying to constantly keep from dying. The smell of mountain air, of leaves, both fresh and decaying, of mist and dirt, wasn’t something they got to enjoy often. There were birds chirping in the trees and rustles of bushes nearby told them that there were other forest creatures playing in the wilderness.

Dean heard a rustle from nearby and thought nothing of it. And because he was still in a fugue like state, he also failed to hear the creaks until it was too late. A tree, small by comparison to the forest around them, but still about a foot in diameter, came crashing down right onto Dean. He had just enough time to throw himself backwards as hard as possible, but it wasn’t quite enough. His reflexes weren’t as sharp as they normally would have been, and the tree caught his right foot.

“Arg!” he screamed, reeling with instant sharp, radiating pain.

“Dean!” came two conjoined screams and the harsh, fast rustling of brush.

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” Dean mumbled, sitting up and reaching for his ankle. The tree was still on top of it.

“Cas, help me,” Sam ordered.

The tree was not as heavy as it looked, most of the damage to Dean being done from the force of the fall, not the weight, and they had it rolled off of him in seconds.

“Is it broken?” Sam asked, kneeling down next to Dean’s foot.

“Can’t tell,” Dean said through gritted teeth. “Hurts like hell though.”

“Let me?” Castiel asked, joining Sam by Dean’s side, kneeling in the brush. He gently prodded Dean’s ankle before nodding to himself. He untied Dean’s boot and slid it off carefully. Dean bit his lip to keep from crying out. The sock came off much more easily. Castiel gently fingered the flesh of his ankle and foot before he set it gently on his thigh.

“What’s the word, doc?” Dean asked.

“I don’t feel any broken bones. It would be safer to get it x-rayed, but something tells me you don’t have health insurance,” Castiel said with a soft smile. “It’s probably just twisted. It should be okay. But you need to rest for a minute, and it will probably swell.” He looked to Sam. “The water is in the bag you dropped when the tree fell. Will you get it?”

Sam nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.” He clapped Dean on the back before picking his way down the mountain side to where the bag lay in the brush.

“How you know so much about broken bones?” Dean asked Cas when they were alone. Castiel was gently massaging his ankle and it felt wonderful.

“I broke my foot about a year ago,” Castiel explained. “I asked a lot of questions and borrowed some books, read a lot. Fortunately, the break healed a month faster than they predicted.  A miracle, they claimed.”

The warmth of his fingers and hand were seeping into Dean’s skin. It was a pleasant tingle, a heat that radiated into his bones. The pain was rapidly passing.

“Dean,” Castiel said, turning to check on Sam’s progress before turning back. “What happened back at the grave site? What were you seeing?”

“You don’t want to know, Cas,” Dean said. “Sorry I freaked you out.”

Castiel shook his head. “It’s not that,” he said. “I put my hand on your shoulder and the flames caught my eye and it was like…” he trailed off, looking into the canopy. “Sense memory. I could feel fire, feel it burning parts of me that don’t exist. But the memory was muffled, not quite a memory.” He shook his head. “I’m sure it was nothing.”

Dean was not so sure, but kept quiet.

“Hey, okay,” Sam said, squatting next to them, “I got water and ibuprofen. Good thing we keep that handy.”

Dean took the water gratefully and gulped half of it down. Sam opened his palm for Dean to take the painkillers, but Dean didn’t grab for it.

“Cas, how’s my ankle?” Dean asked.

Castiel looked down. “No swelling. Not even a little.” He frowned. “Even a sprain would have swollen.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Dean said. He flexed it a few times. “Not at all.”

Castiel bit his lip, Dean licked his, and Sam opened and closed his mouth a few times. After a few moments of silence, Sam broke it by standing up.

“Well then, let’s get going,” he said. “Faker.”

“Bitch,” Dean said, picking up a pebble and chucking it at him.

“Jerk!” Sam called over his shoulder. He was already half way back to the bag.

Castiel tilted his head, looking at Dean like he was a particularly strange puzzle. “I have no idea what just happened.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean said, picking up his sock from where Castiel had laid it on his boot, “Welcome to the hunter life.”

Dean remained more alert on the trek down the mountain. It wasn’t needed, they made it back to the Impala without further incident, but Dean was still on guard. What were the odds that the tree that fell, one amongst millions, would crash right on top of Dean?

Gear stowed safely in the trunk, they made the winding drive back to town. Just as they crossed the line into Gatlinburg proper, Dean’s stomach decided to make itself known with a loud rumble. Castiel snorted in the back before laughing.

“I know of a brewery you might be interested in,” Castiel said when the chuckles died. “We just passed it, but you can park at this church on the side street here and we’ll walk.”

“Brewery sounds awesome,” Dean said, taking the turn Castiel indicated. “I think we deserve it.”

The church was easy to spot on the side street, and its parking lot was behind it. It was honor parking- five dollars requested, and Dean was perfectly willing to be dishonorable in this situation. Castiel, however, had different plans, and slid a ten into the slot in the door. He caught Dean’s look and shrugged.

“It’s a church, Dean,” Castiel said, as if it explained everything.

The walk was fairly short. They passed a few people along the way but Castiel still looked around as if the place had been deserted. The Smokey Mountain Brewery was located down a small shopping plaza and the frame of it was wood planks with wide glass windows. There was no wait at the brewery-slash-restaurant, and they took their seats at a booth on the second story, Dean sliding in next to Castiel.

Dean ordered a tall draught of the Velas Helles lager. Sam ordered a water, as did Castiel. The waiter was back with their drinks before they could get a conversation started, and they ordered dinner. Dean went for a burger, which Castiel assured him would be delicious, and Sam ordered a grilled chicken sandwich with broccoli on the side. Dean rolled his eyes and looked to Cas as the waiter moved on to him.

“I’m not hungry,” he said, handing over the menu.

“Dude we’ve been in the mountains all day, you have to be starved,” Dean said.

Castiel shrugged, but Dean continued to stare at him like he was insane. “Fine, the Caesar salad should do. Thank you, Bert,” Castiel said to their waiter.

“Salads and grilled chicken,” Dean mumbled to himself. “Why do I surround myself with nerds.”

A hand patted his thigh gently in commiseration, and when Dean looked to Cas, he smiled weakly but said nothing. After a moment, he turned to look out the window.

Dean shrugged and took a huge gulp of his beer. It was very good, a light body without being a light beer, and the cool liquid was exactly what he needed. They sat in companionable silence, Sam playing with his phone while Cas continued to people watch, until dinner arrived.

The burger was indeed delicious, and Dean dived into it with relish. He had almost finished it before he noticed that Castiel had barely picked at his salad before resuming his watch out the window.

“Hey,” Dean said, putting his hand on Castiel’s thigh, “You okay?”

Castiel shrugged. “Lost in thought I suppose,” he said. He covered Dean’s hand with his own. “Better now, though.”

Dean snorted inelegantly. “You need to work on your lines,” he said. Nonetheless, he turned his hand until it was palm up and slid their fingers together. “I meant it,” Dean said. “We’ll figure you out.”

Castiel gave him a soft, awkward smile and squeezed his hand. A thank you.

The bill was lower than Dean had feared, and it was made even better when Castiel offered to pay the full tab. Actually, what he did was pick up the check and hand it and his card over to Burt before Dean or Sam could protest. Dean still felt a little like the chick on a date, but it helped that Samantha was there too, still poking at his broccoli on the other side of the table.

Outside, the air was a bit cooler than when they went inside, the evening starting to settle in as the sun moved lower in the sky. They walked back without rush until Castiel stopped suddenly on the sidewalk and Dean ran smack into him.

“Ow, what the hell?” Dean asked.

Castiel turned and grinned. “Moonshine,” he said. He grabbed Dean’s hand and forcefully yanked him across the street where a building similar to a barn was labeled, “Sugarland’s Distilling Co.”

The inside was made of shelves of booze and a few rounded bar sections. These round bars were planked with wood, making them look like large hollowed out barrels. Most were empty, but there was a young woman behind the counter of the furthest back. She had dark brown hair that came midway down her back and a pretty smile. The name tag said her name was Ava.

“ID boys?” Ava asked. When Dean’s eyebrows drew together in surprise and confusion, he hadn’t been carded in years, she added, “By law, we have to card everyone. Besides, you look young enough to be a freshman in college,” she said to Sam, winking.

Sam’s cheeks turned bright red and he fumbled getting his driver’s license out. Dean chuckled and mumbled a smooth under his breath. Sam stomped on his foot.

After they’d presented their ID’s, Ava gave them each one of the smallest Dixie cups Dean had ever seen and started explaining their moonshine. Because the place had been so dead, she had time to kill and gave them the full explanation of each flavor. How they made it, what it would taste like, the best ways to drink it, and so forth. She also explained that normally in the evening they limited the samples to two or three flavors, but since they were cute –this time Ava winked at Cas- she’d let them sample all of them.

They were tasty, but Dean found all of the flavored ones far too sweet for his tastes in liquor. All except for one. The apple pie flavored one, made of green apples instead of red and with a hint of caramel, was amazing. He groaned when he tried it.  Ava smirked knowingly at him. Either she was really good at her job, or she was angling for a four-way that was never going to happen. Sam was his brother, and he kind of wanted Cas all for himself. So shoot him.

He didn’t notice Castiel sneak off, but when he returned, he slid up to Dean with three bottles of Apple Pie Moonshine and a squeeze to his ass.

“Damn it Cas, I have a liver y’know,” Dean said with a huge grin.

“And I know how much you like destroying it,” Castiel replied with an equally wide smile. “Especially when it leads to making out on my couch,” he added with a wink. Whatever had been on his mind earlier seemed to have passed.

“Oh,” came a soft sound from Ava behind the counter. “I didn’t realize…” When Dean and Cas turned to look at her, her face became flushed and she suddenly found the job of wiping down the bar immensely important.

Sam rolled his eyes. “As much as I appreciate you _helping_ my brother,” he said, the word ‘helping’ dripping in sarcasm, “I need a shower.”

Ava squeaked. “Oh dear God, please leave before I do something that will cost me this job.”

It was a shame Ava had such bad timing. Any other case, Dean would have slid her a card with his number.  She was beautiful, and had been entertaining and personable during her presentation of the liquors, chatting and flirting with ease. They’d learned she was in nursing school and had a basset hound puppy name Mowgli. Ava was exactly the kind of person Dean could see Sam settling down with one day.

But today was not that day. Dean slid ten dollars into the tip jar with a wink as both a thank you and an apology.

They finished the walk back to the car quickly, not having had much further to go when Castiel had diverted them. Castiel bumped into him casually several times, sending him meaningful stares.

Dean was in such a good mood, ganking a ghost, picking up freaking 50 proof apple pie moonshine, a gorgeous man by his side that he was, for once, not nervous about pursuing, that he rolled down the windows in Baby and let the wind blow through the short strands of his hair, relishing the day. His mood improved even further when he looked back at Castiel and saw him tilting his head back, letting the breeze ruffle his already wild hair. He looked like sex on legs. In an Impala.

The awkward boner dance was a shift on the bench seat of the Impala, but fortunately Sam was too busy staring out the window, soaking in the warm air, to notice.

Of course, there was a good possibility Sam was more perceptive that Dean gave him credit for, as when they approached the area where their motel was located, he requested to be dropped off.

“Hey why don’t you just let me out at the motel and you can take Cas back,” Sam said, giving Dean a knowing look. He got out of the car with a groan and a long stretch and back pop, and Castiel quickly grasped the opportunity to upgrade to the front seat. But before they could pull away, Sam leaned over through the window and added, “Use a condom.”

While Dean blushed, Castiel snorted.

“Bitch.”

He drove off before Sam could respond. Dean wasn’t a jerk here, Sam was just a bitch.

Besides, Sam’s shit-eating grin in the rearview mirror told him Sam knew he deserved it.

“Where to, Cas?” Dean asked. “Should we get your car or-“

He was cut off by a slim, long fingered hand sliding up his thigh. “No, we can leave that for now. I have other things I’d like to attend to.” Dean floored the gas pedal and Castiel laughed, deep and throaty.

It was the longest ten minute drive of Dean’s life. Castiel was merciless, his hand rubbing higher and more towards the sensitive inside of Dean’s thigh at every passing minute. When his fingers slowly slipped over his growing bulge Dean gasped and the car gave an uneasy wobble on the road. Unlike the last time Castiel’s hand had strayed that far, Dean had no inclination to stop it. Instead, he thrust minutely into it.

Castiel made a sound in his throat that sounded something like a growl and slid closer. His lips attached themselves to Dean’s neck and it was Dean’s turn to let out a primal sound.

“Fuck, Cas, if you don’t stop right now, we might not make it back,” Dean said. “And I’d really like to make it back to your place. And your bed,” he added pointedly. Castiel lips immediately detached and his hand pulled to the side. Still dangerously tempting, close enough to keep Dean’s heart rate pounding, but not enough that he was in danger of creaming his pants or veering off the road.

“Drive. Faster,” Castiel growled.

God help him, Dean tried.

But the road was narrow and winding, and he could only go so fast. Luckily, it wasn’t much further, and Dean pulled Baby into the closest spot he could find.

Castiel wasted no time reattaching himself to Dean’s neck the second they were in the elevator. Throwing his head back, Dean groaned. His fists found their way into the back of Castiel’s shirt and Dean begged the elevator gods for the thing to go faster.

They almost missed the ding and stumbled their way out of the metal box and into the hallway. Castiel had to remove himself from Dean long enough to unlock the door to his apartment and they tumbled inside.

“Shit,” Dean groaned as Castiel shoved him against the just-closed door. He might have mumbled more if it wasn’t for Castiel smashing their mouths together, his hands frantically scrambling at Dean’s shirt.

Once the first shirt was out of the way, he grasped Dean’s second shirt tightly and used it to yank him back from the door. It was a good thing Castiel knew the layout of his apartment like the back of his hand, or he would have taken more than one piece of furniture out on his way back to the bedroom.

Castiel pushed Dean back onto the full sized bed where he landed with a bounce. Dean immediately sat up and ripped his last shirt over his head.

There, Castiel paused, staring down at Dean’s form, panting hard. His eyes strayed to Dean’s handprint.

“What is it about you, Dean Winchester?” Castiel asked. He knelt over Dean, planting a knee on both sides of his legs, bending over to crawl carefully up Dean’s body. Dean laid back and let him. “Why am I so pulled to you?”

“I don’t know,” Dean confessed when Castiel was close, hovering just above his mouth. “But I feel it too.” The truth was, he had a strong suspicion and was too freaking terrified to voice it.

They were kissing again, only now it was less frantic and more deep. Dean felt like his soul was being stroked by a carefully probing tongue. He ran his right hand up Castiel side and situated it tightly in Castiel’s hair, pulling his mouth even closer.

“Mmm,” Castiel mumbled into his mouth. He broke the kiss to resume contact with Dean’s neck, where he slowly licked and nibbled his way down and across two pecks. He hadn’t even gotten to anything good and Dean felt like a livewire. Then two lips attached over the soft peak of his nipple and sucked, taking Dean’s brain right with it.

“Oh my fuck,” Dean mumbled, a hand tightening in Castiel’s hair, the other gripping the bedspread tight, feeling his nipple tighten as the texture of Castiel’s tongue continually swirled over it. “Shit Cas, how’d you learn all my buttons?” Castiel chuckled before biting gently.

Dean bucked.

“Fuck!” Dean cried. Suddenly his hands weren’t satisfied with gripping hair and cotton and instead were pulling at Castiel’s AC/DC shirt like it would pain him if the thing wasn’t discarded _immediately_. Castiel obeyed, pulling off of Dean’s chest long enough to let him pull the shirt over his head and chuck it to the side.

His hands wouldn’t keep still. While Castiel moved to torture his other nipple, and then lower still, Dean’s fingers wound through his hair, down his biceps, across his back, anywhere that he could physically reach to let his fingers learn Castiel’s skin.

Castiel was sucking marks into his abdomen, causing the muscles to twitch. While his tongue worked, his right hand slid up Dean’s thigh and straight to the button on his jeans. He popped the button before Dean’s hand was regretfully stilling Castiel’s.

The blue eyed sex god looked up, confused.

“Not that I want to stop,” Dean said, breathless. “But Sam was right- we worked up a sweat today. I’m probably pretty rank down there.”

Castiel’s eyes somehow dilated even further. “Dean, you smell like heaven,” he asserted. “I want to smell your musk.”

Dean snorted. Hard. “I think that was your worst yet,” Dean said, tone nothing but fond. “Remind me to give you lessons.” Castiel’s lips turned up at the corner. There was a hidden implication there, a promise that this wouldn’t be their only time together, and he didn’t miss it.

“Let me,” Castiel said in his deep, gravely voice, pressing his lips to the soft skin just above the line of Dean’s jeans, “take care of you.”

“That’s better,” Dean said, losing his voice as he sucked in a breath. Castiel had slid down the zipper and gripped his erection through his boxers.

He squeezed before pulling his hand away to work at Dean’s jeans. Dean wiggled with him, helping Castiel pull the denim down his legs. They were stopped by Dean’s boots, and Dean almost injured another foot with how fast Castiel pulled the things off, socks and all.

Jeans gone, Castiel situated himself between Dean’s knees and made no delay in pulling the cotton of his boxers over his erection. His dick free and exposed to both the air and Castiel’s hungry stare, Dean had to once again brace himself by sinking his fingers into the bedspread.

Lips were pressed to the head of his cock and Dean felt it pulse with a sudden flare of arousal. He was already dribbling precome. He had always been on the light side of precome amount, and it only presented itself when he was extremely worked up. Right now, he was definitely extremely worked up.

“Casssss,” Dean groaned.

He took it as a sign to continue and wrapped his lips around the head of Dean’s cock.

Dean was flying apart at the seams. Which was ridiculous really, he’d been given plenty of blow jobs in his life. But this was completely different. It was too much, far too much, and yet, not enough. He needed more, needed Cas, needed everything he couldn’t give words to.

He whimpered instead.

As Castiel began to sink down his length, tongue swirling and suction strong, Dean found that his hair was a much more suitable source for grounding than the bed spread and quickly worked two hands into the dark strands.

Castiel liked it, if his moan was anything to go by. The vibrations sent another pulse through Dean’s body and, without his conscious command, his grip in Castiel’s hair was forcing him to stop.

“I’m really, really fucking close,” Dean said, hoarse as hell. “And I had other things in mind.”

Castiel looked up from his position between Dean’s legs, his lips wrapped around Dean’s girth, and his eyes conveyed all of his arousal, understanding and new found sense of urgency.

He pulled off of Dean quickly and sloppily, drool shining on his chin, which was actually pretty hot. He ran the back of his hand over his face to wipe off the spit as he stood up. Castiel unbuckled his own jeans and slid his boxers to the ground with them.

“Wait,” Dean said, sitting up. “Wait,” he repeated. “Can I?” he started to ask as he slid to his knees before Castiel and took his cock loosely in hand. He swallowed hard. “Can I taste you too?”

Castiel groaned. “Jesus Dean, you are going to kill me.”

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Dean replied with a smirk. He gave Castiel no time to respond before licking up Castiel’s length and sucking his cock into his mouth.

“Ahhh!” Castiel cried out, his hips stuttering and a hand weaving into Dean’s hair. “Oh mother of God.”

Dean grinned. He may never have done this before, but that didn’t mean he didn’t know how it should go. He worked his tongue, flicking at the slit before bobbing twice, sucking harder when the edge of the glans met his lips. Castiel’s fingers tightened in his hair.

Castiel tasted delicious. If ever there was confirmation that he was well and truly into dick, it would be in discovering how wonderful the heat and weight of a cock felt on his tongue. He didn’t even mind the slight taste of fluid, as Castiel began to leak precome.

He didn’t get to suck on Castiel’s cock for long before Castiel said breathlessly, “I thought you said you had other plans.”

Dean pulled off, grinning. “Yeah,” he said. “I, um-“ But he froze on the request, a blush blossoming.

“Pitch or catch?” Castiel said fondly, rubbing his fingers across Dean’s cheek bone.

Dean swallowed hard. “Not sure,” he confessed.

“Then you should catch,” Castiel said, tucking his hand under Dean’s chin to guide him to his feet. He kissed Dean, short and sweet, filled with promise. “Let me take care of you.”

“That,” Dean began, but he had to swallow again. He was lost in Castiel’s eyes, having a hard time focusing on what was such an important conversation. “That sounds good.”

“Lay down,” Castiel instructed. He went for the top drawer of his end table, pulling out a bottle of KY lubricant, clearly labeled water based, before returning to Dean. He knelt between Dean’s legs and nudged Dean’s knee with a hand. Dean got the message and bent his knees slightly, exposing himself more fully. Castiel opened the bottle and spread some liquid on his fingers. With his clean hand, he held his weight as he leaned over to kiss Dean one more time. “Have you ever done this?” he asked.

A lubricated finger brushed over his cheek and Dean yelped, too sensitive and raw, startled by the contact. He nodded. “A little,” he managed to get out. “To myself.”

“Relax,” Castiel whispered into his ear. His finger was exploring and had nearly found its goal. “Tell me if it’s too much.” Dean nodded gently as Castiel’s nose pressed into the soft skin behind his ear.

A slim digit nudged his entrance and Dean didn’t know whether to clench or throw his legs open wider, so he did neither. Barely breathing, Dean felt the first finger slide in slowly.

It was different than when he did this too himself, mainly in that Castiel’s finger was slimmer and longer, and that he was working from a different angle. But it was familiar nonetheless. He relaxed a little with the first breach out of the way. He could do this. It felt _good_.

“You’re relaxing so fast,” Castiel mumbled into his neck. He sounded awed. “We’re not even in the best position for this.” He continued to thrust his finger gently. “I think you’re ready for a second finger.”

Dean nodded, knowing he was.

The second changed things. Not that the width provided any discomfort, but because Castiel rotated his hand and crooked his fingers, and after a few searching movements, pressed straight into Dean’s prostate.

“Oh, shit!” Dean yelped, instinctually grinding down. He felt Castiel grin against his neck.

It was very easy to get on board with the plan after that. Castiel worked him open with ease as Dean thrust himself back into the fingers. A third was added, and after so much careful work with two, Dean only felt the added width and stretch, but no pain. The addition of a pinky caused a small twinge, but it was quickly forgotten.

“C’mon, c’mon,” Dean heard himself mumble.

“Sorry,”Castiel said, detaching himself from Dean’s neck and shoulder, sitting up. “I… may have gotten lost in the moment,” he confessed.

With his hair a mess, eyes glazed over, and lips red and puffy, Castiel looked like the epitome of a sex god. Dean couldn’t resist pulling Castiel down and meeting him for a deep, quick, sloppy kiss.

“Fuck me, Cas,” he growled into his lips.

Castiel’s eyes were already blown wide, but they still found a way to pulse with arousal at Dean’s words.

He carefully slid his fingers out.

And froze.

Dean groaned in frustration and threw his head back. “What?” he demanded.

“I don’t have condoms,” Castiel said. He said it like someone had just kicked his favorite puppy.

“You…?” Dean began. “How do you not have condoms?”

“Um,” Castiel said, biting his lips. “I’ve never actually done this before.”

Dean gaped at him. His mouth moved twice before words came out. “You’re shitting me.”

“I am not,” Castiel said flatly, “shitting you.”

“Well then how-“

“I just know things!” Castiel sniped. “Now do you have something or do we need to stop?”

Dean threw an arm across his face and started laughing. It was ridiculous. Mr. Sex God didn’t have condoms. Lucky for them, he always had one in his wallet.

“Wallet,” Dean managed to get out in chuckles. “Jeans on the floor.”

Castiel kept his eye on Dean while he retrieved the wallet and condom within. He plainly didn’t like that Dean was laughing at him, but Dean couldn’t help it. It was absurd. Mr. Sex God hadn’t had sex.

“Dean,” Castiel said sternly, climbing back onto the bed. He truly looked upset, and that was something Dean had never meant to cause. He sat up again, pulled Castiel into a gentle kiss.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I thought you were some sex god sent to ravish me.” He pecked another kiss. “This is better,” he explained, pulling another kiss. Castiel was beginning to relax again. “So much better.” And another. “Fuck me, Cas,” he repeated from earlier. He wrapped his hand around Castiel’s fading erection and pulled on it until he was hard again and thrusting back.

Dean did, actually, really, well and truly, like the idea that he was just as much a first for Castiel as he was for him. He felt less vulnerable somehow, and yet, even more so. His heart itself had never been more exposed.

Castiel’s eyes had melted into liquid blue as he met Dean’s look. He tore open the condom packet, blew into it to make it puff out, pinched the tip, and rolled it over his cock. He picked up the bottle of lube and spread a few more drops over his length before nudging his way between Dean’s legs, pressing close. He held his cock as he pressed the tip into Dean’s hole.

Dean was so relaxed, so loose, Castiel breached the rim easily. Dean’s eyes rolled back in his head.

“Cas,” he whispered with awe. His knees pressed into Castiel’s side, wanting him closer. “Oh shit,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

He opened his eyes. Castiel was frozen, a stunned look on his face.

Castiel whimpered, a small little whine.

“Cas,” Dean said from below him. “C’mon.”

Castiel nodded in response and pushed in just a bit more.

He went slow. Very slow. Dean got the impression that was just as much for himself as it was for Dean’s benefit.

When Castiel bottomed out, he collapsed forward and crashed his mouth into Dean’s.

“You feel like heaven,” Castiel said in between frantic kisses. “You feel like sin, like lust personified.” He rolled his hips gently, sending sparks down Dean’s spine. “Like lightning in a bottle, like a tornado caught within.”

“Fuck,” was all Dean could say in response. “ _Cas_.”

“How am I so connected to you?” Castiel asked, his pace picking up. His hands found Dean’s thighs and cupped them gently. He wasn’t forcing Dean to spread further or bring them up, but the implication that he _could_ was there.

“I-“ Dean replied with what brain cells he could muster, “I know what you mean,” he reassured him. “OH! Oh fuck!”

His assurances were forced into a cry as Castiel hit him in all the right ways. One hand left his thigh and wrapped itself around Dean’s dick, pumping in time with Castiel’s thrusts.

Dean summoned everything he had to wrap a hand around Castiel’s wrist and stop him.

“Want-“ he panted, “Want to ride you.”

Castiel bit Dean’s shoulder with his moan.

He buried himself as far into Dean as he could and wrapped his arms around Dean’s torso. With impressive dexterity and grace, he rocked backward and Dean went with him, adjusting limbs, until Castiel was on his back and Dean was kneeling over him. They never broke contact.

They had to shuffle a little to get Castiel’s head back on the bed, and neither gave two shits that they were at an absurd angle to the mattress, Castiel’s face near where his feet used to be.

Dean wiggled his hips twice before cautiously picking himself up and sinking back down.

Castiel writhed beneath him, coming part way off the bed, biting his lip so hard Dean was sure it would bleed. His hands found Dean’s hips and gripped tight.

“Don’t. Stop,” Castiel panted.

Castiel’s hands remained as a gentle squeeze while Dean set a slow pace, and when Dean’s movement became stronger, Castiel’s grip followed. He was pulling Dean on top of him, helping him grind on his cock.

Dean was lost to the pleasure, lost to the feeling. He threw his head back and maneuvered his hips until he felt Castiel graze his prostate again and again. When Castiel moved a hand from his hip to wrap around his cock, he knew he was done for. He came so hard, shots of come flew over Castiel’s shoulder, some landing on his skin.

When he came back to reality, it was to find that he had actually bitten his lip bloody, and that Castiel had planted his feet flat and leveraged himself into thrusting completely into Dean’s pliant body from below. Chasing his own release, Castiel’s hands wandered with wild abandon over Dean’s skin, gripping him in a frenzied plea to find something he could ground himself in.

His grip found Dean’s left shoulder, right at the mysterious handprint, and slotted into place. Castiel’s eyes went wide, lips parted in surprise, a split second before he buried himself as far into Dean as he could and screamed.

Dean could feel Castiel’s cock pulsing with release, just as much as he could feel his skin beneath Castiel’s grip pulsing with it.

There was a moment where Castiel had finished coming, but was locked in place. His eyes opened, glazed and lost, before he collapsed boneless back to the bed, his hands falling to the side.

Dean felt a need too great to explain to be as physically close to Castiel as possible. He pulled his hips ups, gently letting Castiel’s softening cock slip out, but otherwise didn’t move, other than to cling to the man below him like a life preserver. Castiel returned the sentiment, holding him just as tight, Dean’s head tucked into his neck. Dean knew what he was going to say before he said it. He’d been denying the feeling, denying the hints, and Castiel was about to shatter the illusion.

“I think,” Castiel said, his breath ghosting through Dean’s hair. “I’m the one who pulled you out of hell.”

Dean squeezed him tighter.

They lay like that for a long time.

It was Castiel who finally suggested they retrieve the moonshine from the car, and Dean readily agreed. He didn’t smoke, but a shot sounded like the perfect chaser to what they just experienced.

Dean skipped his boxers, slid on his jeans, and went down to his car without a shirt. He was already stripped bare in every way possible, what would a shirt protect? He hadn’t let himself process the revelation yet, but things were about to change.

Castiel was in boxers in a t-shirt by the time he got back and had two glasses ready to go. He quickly poured them each a huge helping. He drank his entire glass in one go while Dean took a seat at Castiel’s small round table. He shot his own drink and poured some more.

“What do you remember?” Dean finally asked as Castiel began to pace the room.

Castiel shook his head. “Just flashes,” he said. “Pieces are coming back.” He walked around his tiny apartment a few more times before he stopped dead in his tracks. “Thirty years,” he said. “You said you were in hell for almost thirty years.”

Dean was barely following. “Yeah.”

“Then I got to you in time,” Castiel said.

“You… I was there for thirty fucking years, how was that in time?!” Dean exclaimed.

“Tell me, Dean,” Castiel said, calming down now that he had found a thread to go from. “What do you remember?”

Dean opened his mouth, utter confusion and, therefore, annoyance, on the tip of his tongue. Then something clicked. “You know,” he said roughly. “About the offer. To get out of being tortured to ribbons if I started shredding souls with my own hands.”

Castiel nodded and slipped into the chair across from Dean. “That’s what I was remembering today. When I looked into that fire. I pushed my way through fire and brimstone, my wings aflame, my soul,“ he shook his head, “my grace burning. It’s fuzzy still, Dean, but I remember that. Pushing myself beyond my limit, burning myself alive to get to you before you could pick up that razor and go down a dark and dangerous path, one you may well have lost yourself in.”

Dean swallowed hard. Castiel cupped his cheek, moving a thumb across the bone.

“We are profoundly connected, Dean,” Castiel explained.

Dean was quiet for a while. This was huge. He now knew the angel that had saved him from hell. As if that wouldn’t have been a big enough revelation on it’s own, he just had to go and fall for the guy, and then fuck him. This was ten kinds of messed up.

He finally said, “Cas. It’s too much.”

Castiel sighed. He grabbed the closest chair and pulled up to Dean, sitting so close to Dean, they were sharing air. A slim finger tilted Dean’s up, forcing him to meet Castiel’s eyes. They were warm and understanding, with a trace of uncertainty in the pools of blue. Castiel kissed him gently, breaking the kiss just as softly.

“There is still much to figure out,” Castiel told him. “But I sincerely hope you won’t let a little thing like cross-species mating taboos get in our way.”

Dean’s snort turned into a full blown laugh that stayed for only a moment. Though it was all kinds of hilarious to think an angel could ever fall for _him_ , especially after seeing him at his worst, if his being saved was in anyway tied to Castiel’s state of amnesia and humanity, he couldn’t handle the guilt.

He needed time.

Smoke on the Water filled the silence, his cellphone vibrating in his pocket, providing an opportunity to break from the too-huge moment. The caller ID said it was Sam.

He pressed answer. “What’s up?” he said. His voice sounded tired, ragged. He stood up and paced to the other side of the living room, hoping for some privacy. Castiel’s eyes followed him.

“ _Dean_!” Sam said through the line. “ _Oh thank god, you’re okay_.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Sam took a deep breath before continuing. “ _Something isn’t adding up here. How that tree came down right on you, the grave site being cleared out-_ “

“I’ll be right there,” Dean said, cutting him off. If he needed time, this was the perfect excuse.

“ _Dean?_ ” Sam asked, a little confused, but Dean ended the call before he could press.

He turned to tell Castiel that he had to leave, but Castiel was already there. He handed Dean his shirt, his face pensive.

“Cas-“ Dean began, unsure of what he was going to say.

Castiel shook his head. “Go,” he said. “Your brother needs you.”

He watched Dean put on his shirt and shoes and head out the door with worry in his eyes. Dean wished he could reassure him, tell him that everything was fine, but he was feeling more rattled than he had in a long time and the words wouldn’t come out.

The feel of the road under the tires of his baby did wonders to sooth him. He cracked the window, letting the night air surround him while he contemplated what Castiel had said as he navigated the dark, deserted streets. Profoundly connected. In truth, Dean barely knew the man. It had been a few days since they met. But Dean didn’t doubt the truth of the statement. And for a loner, whose only connection in the last nine years has been with his brother, the idea that he could have an inexplicable bond with someone –with an angel- was terrifying.

Then there was the part about carving souls in hell that he really could have done without the reminder of. Dean couldn’t remember being rescued, but he knows when it must have happened, because he doesn’t remember carving anyone up. But he sure as heaven remembers contemplating it. He didn’t think he could have taken one more day of being flayed before he would have agreed. One more day and Dean would have been the one ripping people apart.

The thought sent bile up his throat.

What would have happened if Cas hadn’t made it in time? Would he be a demon now? Would he have been un-savable? Cas had said he could have lost himself. Did he mean physically? Emotionally? Psychologically? He could barely handle the memories he had of hell as it was now. He couldn’t imagine coping if he had cracked.

Dean saw a deer at the side of the road and let it cross the street. As Dean watched the young doe scamper into the woods, his thoughts turned to the other possibility. Maybe Castiel had meant it would have unleashed a part of him that he resisted every day.

The same part of him that took a certain, sick glee in feeling a vamp’s neck rip in two, or the sense of pleasure in burying Ruby’s knife deep into the gut of some demon.

He was disgusting. A ruthless, brutal, violent killing machine, and there was no way he ever deserved a moment of Castiel’s time.

Dean parked the Impala at the motel and went to meet Sam, trying to set aside the sickness in his stomach before his brother’s all too knowing stares saw right through it. He should have known that would be a useless notion, as the second he came into their guest room, Sam was on his feet and demanding to know what was wrong.

“Nothing!” Dean griped. “You said something was up, so I came. What’s up?”

Sam looked utterly unconvinced, but set his questions aside and started explaining why he had called.

“I was thinking about everything, how that tree came down on you, how the grave site was cleared out, the candle stumps, and most importantly, how Radford Gatlin randomly came back from the dead to attack people, all people that had shopped at Castiel’s store.”

Dean shifted nervously. “It’s not-“

“I know, it’s not Cas,” Sam said quickly, placating. “I think it’s his boss. It doesn’t make sense, why would a local just take Cas in like that?” Sam asked. “So I looked him up. Dean, the guy’s birth record is 200 years old.”

“Fuck,” Dean breathed. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Why wasn’t their life ever easy? “Witch?”

“Best guess,” Sam agreed. “We need to check this guy out.”

“Yeah,” Dean said. “Where to?”

Sam glanced out the window. “Given that it’s the middle of the night, I’m guessing we shouldn’t go to his house. But we could check out the shop.”

Dean nodded. “Worth a shot.”

Once again, Dean found himself behind the wheel of his baby, driving out into the dark of Gatlinburg. The headlights reflected over the empty shop windows when they pulled in, and Dean killed them and the engine quickly. No need to draw attention to themselves when it was obvious no one was supposed to be here at this time.

The lock pick in his pocket made quick work of the door to Castiel’s little shop. He opened it slowly, trying to prevent the jingling of the bells. Once they were inside, he flicked on the flashlight app on his phone, dimming the light so they could navigate the art stands but not bright enough to make them noticeable. He had to admit, these “smart phones” had some advantages.

A few days ago, Mr. Gregors had emerged from a door in the back and Dean made a beeline to it now, Sam following closely. The room on the other side was tiny but functional. Most of it was set up as an artist studio, with an easel in the middle of the room, tubes of paint standing on the table to the side, and blank canvases filed in slots to the left. The back looked like storage.

Dean slid past the half-finished painting and noted with fresh perspective that the landscapes Castiel painted had themes of hell and references to angels. He wondered how many of them were conscious and how many of them were manifestations from his muddled memory.

Once he was past the painting, he was able to see that there was another, much smaller room, just beyond the storage. While Sam checked the storage containers, Dean went on inside. There was an old metal desk, which looked like something from M.A.S.H., and a beat up leather desk chair. The top was, in Dean’s opinion, too organized. He saw all of the office supplies one could need, a stapler, a lamp, post-it notes, a pencil holder. There was some paper work in the middle, but it looked like accounting information.

The top drawer of the desk revealed more office supplies, some paperclips and rubber erasers and nothing interesting. The middle drawer had hanging files. A glance at that the labels showed more accounting and other business related documents. It was all dull and boring until Dean slid open the bottom drawer. There were candles in the bottom. The same candles that had been at Gatlin’s grave.

“Shit,” Dean mumbled, running a hand over his face. He had been hoping, for Castiel’s sake, that they had been wrong.

“Dean!” Sam whispered in a hushed but urgent tone. “I’ve got something.”

“So do I,” Dean responded. He walked out to Sam, who was holding a pad of paper. “He has the same candles that were on that bastard ghost’s tombstone.”

Sam nodded, completely unsurprised. “That confirms it. But Dean, there’s more to this, and it’s not looking good.”

He turned the pad towards Dean. It was filled with sketches, doodles that must have been Gregors.  They looked nothing like Castiel’s hand, and were so loosely done that they looked like afterthoughts, just things done to pass the time. Most of them were sigils and other symbolic looking pencil scratches. As Sam moved one on top, Dean realized with dread that it would make more sense for these to belong to Castiel. The top image was something he had seen only once, when they’d been confronted by a crazy, pissed off angel. It was the blade he had carried at the time.

“Angels,” Dean whispered. “Shit.”

“Gregors is an angel,” Sam agreed, mistaken.

Dean shook his head. “Not necessarily,” he said with a grimace. Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Cas remembered some stuff while I was with him. He’s an angel. He’s-“ Dean swallowed hard. “He’s the one who pulled me out.”

He didn’t have to elaborate. Sam got the meaning immediately.

“Well that explains why you rushed out of there,” Sam eventually said. “So there’s no way to know if these are Castiel’s sketches, or Gregors.”

Dean’s lips thinned. “There’s no way to know who the candles belong to either. It’s _not_ Cas, but-“

“Two angels in one spot would be pretty unlikely,” Sam finished.

After a long silence, Dean sighed and handed the sketchbook back to Sam to put away. “Let’s go,” Dean said.

He let himself back out while Sam shuffled the papers back into the bin he’d found them in. Dean crossed the gallery much more quickly than he had the first time but cracked the front door as slowly as he had the first time. Sam was right behind him.

Dean was outside and pulling his keys out of his pocket when he heard something from behind him. He spun quickly on his feet to face what was coming, but the other person was faster. He just made out the figure of a pale man with light hair when something hit him in the head. Hard. Dean registered three things in a split second- his keys falling like dead weight out of his hand, an angry shout from a few feet away, and, overriding all else, the crackling pain shooting across his skull.

The world went black.

The first and only thing Dean was aware of for a few minutes was intense pain, a pain he was unfortunately very familiar with. He wondered how long it would be before he showed signs of permanent brain damage. Of course, the fact that he was lucid enough to wonder about that probably said something.

Like that he gets hit over the head so often he’s become an expert at recovering.

Pain. Probably from a shovel or some other metal object. Check.

Next, assess the damage. No other pain registering, slight discomfort at his wrists. Bound. Naturally. A tiny bounce of his hands told him he wasn’t bound _to_ something, which was a small comfort.

Surroundings? Dean tried to open his eyes, but the pale light from a light source nearby, probably a lamp, given its height, was enough to send a fresh stab of pain through his head and the moan came out of its own accord.

“Good, you’re awake.” The owner of the voice shuffled into Dean’s clearing vision. Gregors looked gleeful as he wrapped a hand around Dean’s bicep and hauled him bodily to his feet. Yeah, the light had been a lamp. He was in a small cabin, probably Gregor’s.

A blade was pressed to his throat. Another thing Dean was unfortunately an expert in recognizing. “We have company,” Gregors said.

As if in timed practice, Gregors’ words were followed by the door to the cabin crashing inwards, splinters flying across the room.  Castiel swirled around Sam’s larger figure, rushing forward, only to stop abruptly at the sight of Dean by knife point.

“Daniel,” Castiel said. He sounded calm, but his tense stance and steal in his tone conveyed the image of a comet wrapped in tissue paper. “Why. For god’s sake, why?”

Gregors laughed. “Not for god’s sake, that’s for sure,” he said. The blade at Dean’s throat twisted gently, not quite piercing the skin.  “I need your grace, Castiel.”

Dean’s vision was back well enough to see Castiel’s eyebrows rise in confusion. “I don’t have any.”

“Yeah, see, that’s what I thought,” Gregors said. “When I found you naked in the woods. Such a disappointment. An angel with no memory and no grace. Still, I thought you could prove useful, so I took you in.”

Castiel stepped cautiously forward and stopped abruptly when Dean flinched. Gregors had pressed the knife deeper, and he was pretty sure that move had broken skin.

“You dick,” Dean said. Utterly unhelpful, but the snark made him feel better.

“How did you know I was an angel?” Castiel asked, carefully measuring his words. Next to him, Sam also tried to step closer, and also froze when the knife went deeper. Damn them, if they kept trying that, he was going to be the most slowly beheaded hunter in the history of mankind.

 “I recognized you,” Gregors said, as if it were simple. “Your name actually is Castiel by the way. And I wasn’t lying when I told you it was a family name.”

Dean got what that meant about the same second Castiel did, if his wide eyes were anything to go by. They were so screwed.

“You’re an angel,” Cas said with a faint gasp.

“Omiel,” Gregors said with great pride.

“Gesundheit,” Dean said.

He heard Sam say, “Dean,” at the same time Gregors said, “Watch your tongue.”

“Omiel,” Castiel repeated slowly, chewing over the name. Then recognition dawned. “Fallen. You were cast out, stripped of rank, banished-”

“I was,” Gregors, Omiel, agreed. “Like filth. And do you know why? It’s really quite ironic, given what you were up to a few hours ago, if Dean’s exit without a top was any indication.”Castiel’s face fell. He knew what Omiel meant. “I dared love a human. God cast me out, shunned me, but left me immortal to suffer for eternity, all because I once fell in love. I’ve been on this planet for millennia, taking on new identities when governments started to require them, learning to act human, and then the fates dropped you in my lap. And I. Want. Your. Grace.”

“I told you-“

“Yes, you did. And I believed it too. Until you broke your ankle. No one heals that fast, Castiel,” Omiel said. “So I began to think, maybe it’s not gone. Maybe it’s diminished. Maybe you fought your way out of hell so fast and so hard, the brimstone burned through all of it but a speck, and maybe, when pushed, you could use it. Maybe it would replenish when needed. Maybe it needed a shove.”

“That’s a lot of maybe’s pal,” Dean said.

Omiel ignored him. “So I raised Gatlin’s spirit, targeted him on his old enemies, ones that came to the shop so I’d know you’d notice. And sure enough, you started to manifest more and more abilities. It’s coming back now, isn’t it?” Omiel paused, didn’t need Castiel to answer, and licked his lips. “Then this man showed up and everything fell into place. That wasn’t even part of the plan, you reuniting with the soul you rushed to save. But it helped.”

Omiel laughed then. “Oh Castiel, you should have heard the angels bickering after you pulled him out. You weren’t supposed to do it that fast. You weren’t supposed to get to him before he picked up the blade and broke the first seal.”

“I take it that’s not a thing at Sea World,” Dean said. Both Cas and Sam shot him a look that said, ‘ _For the love of all you believe in, shut the fuck up._ ’

Castiel, however, seemed to know what he meant. “The apocalypse. They _wanted_ to start the apocalypse?!”

Omiel nodded. “Well unfortunately for them, and fortunately for me, you risked everything to get to Dean here, and popped up on Earth, practically in my backyard, screaming ‘Dean Winchester is saved’ so loud that I found you within a moment.” He took a deep breath. “And now your grace has almost fully returned. It just needs one final nudge.”

In hindsight, Dean should have seen it coming. Given all that Omiel was telling them, it really was the logical move. He took the blade from Dean’s throat and swiftly plunged it into his chest. It sliced right through bone and sinew, blood coming up Dean’s pipeways so fast he didn’t even get to scream.

Castiel did though. He screamed Dean’s name and charged forward as Omiel let him drop. He was to Dean’s side before he hit the ground.

“Heal him, Castiel,” Omiel said, “And you will be restored completely.”

Castiel’s hands scrambled over Dean’s chest, panic clear on his face. It did not suit him.

“Cas?” Dean gurgled. Christ, talking hurt. Breathing hurt. Everything hurt.

“I… I don’t know how, I’ve never intentionally-“

Dean found his hand with his own and placed it gently over the wound. He nodded. “S’okay,” he managed to get out, spluttering more blood.

“No, no it’s not okay,” Castiel insisted. “Damn it, Omiel, this isn’t fair. I can’t, I don’t know, I, I…”

Damn, Omiel got him good. He was going into shock and he knew it. He was cold and the pain was dulling. There wasn’t a lot of time left. Castiel had pulled him back from death once, but Dean doubted he could do it again. This could be it, and Dean was oddly okay with that. Dean squeezed his hand, trying to say, “It’s not your fault,” but the words wouldn’t come out. And that sucked. He didn’t want to die with the last thing he sees being Castiel’s guilt and panic ridden face.

“No,” Castiel whined again. He flattened his hand to Dean’s chest and closed his eyes. He looked a bit like an angel trying to take a dump. Now Dean hoped _that_ wasn’t about to be the last thing he would ever think.

The warmth started small and gentle, but gathered strength quickly. Light began to shine from Castiel’s hand and Dean could feel the tendrils of heat work through the wound and into his body. Flesh was knitting back together, shattered bone becoming whole once again. He gasped when he could breathe freely, and Castiel’s hand abruptly left his chest.

Castiel fell backward with a jerk. The light was surrounding him, glowing brighter and stronger, and Dean didn’t think it was just a concussion making the brightness hurt.

“Oh,” Castiel said, surprised. He was being consumed in light. “Close your eyes,” he said breathlessly. Then, loudly, ordering with a scream, “Close your eyes!”

The brightness was so intense that even with an arm thrown over his eyes and his lids shut tight, it hurt. It only lasted a second, but Dean would be seeing spots for days.

Through the spots, he could make out Castiel, stunned and awed, flexing his fist as if he’d never felt it before. His grace was fully restored, his status as an angel once again solidified.

“Excellent,” Omiel said. “Now I just have to slit your throat-“

“Cas!” Sam shouted. Dean almost forgot he was there. Which, he supposed, was the point. Sam had silently maneuvered behind Omiel and kicked sharply at the odd looking blade in his hand.  It flipped through the air and landed next to Dean. Acting on pure muscle instinct, knowing he wasn’t much use from the floor, he wrapped a hand around the hilt and tossed it up to Cas, who caught it with ease. With a smooth, practiced motion, he stabbed it straight into Omiel’s chest.

Omiel looked at the blade in shock. The entire dance had happened in a second.  He didn’t die right away, nor did he seem to be shrugging it off.

“I thought he was immortal,” Dean said in the dramatic pause.

“That’s an angel blade,” Castiel explained. “You shouldn’t have to shut your eyes again, he has no grace, but that should kill him.”

Omiel’s mouth worked twice. “Brother,” he said, small and wounded, like he’d been betrayed.

“No,” Castiel said coldly. “You manipulated me and killed innocents with such ease. You are not my brother. You didn’t deserve God’s punishment, but you deserve this.”

Omiel died like a human, collapsing as dead weight and losing control of his ordinary bodily functions. Staring at him from the floor, Dean found it hard to believe the average looking middle class man had been a psychopathic angel all along.

Then again, he had no idea Castiel had been an angel either.

Who was next, the gas station attendant? The guy he bought a hot dog from a week ago?

“Well then,” Sam commented. He toed at the body and it blessedly did not move. “What now?”

Dean opened his mouth to make a remark about really needing that shower now, but changed his mind when he saw the look on Castiel’s face. Too many emotions moved beneath the skin for it to be comfortable, and his gaze was still stuck on Omiel.

He leveraged himself off the floor carefully, just in case he wasn’t fully healed, and placed a hand on Castiel’s shoulder. He waited until Castiel looked at him before he nodded to the door. Castiel’s head bobbed once in agreement and Dean steered him out the door.

“You okay?” Dean asked, once he they were outside, leaning back into the Impala. She had been parked askew. Sam must have taken the keys Dean dropped and then gone for Cas.

“Dean,” Castiel said, “You were just stabbed and nearly died. Are _you_ okay?”

“Super,” Dean said, thumping his chest. “Seems I’ve got a guardian angel watching over me,” he added with a wink. Castiel shook his head fondly, a small smile cracking his worried face. “And right now I want to know if he’s okay.”

Castiel sighed and flexed his hand again. “Disturbingly perfect,” he responded, before snorting. “Physically, anyway.”

Dean nodded, expecting this answer. “You know you’re the same guy, with or without mojo.”

Cas snorted. “Easy for you to say. I just spent the last years as a human, and within hours my entire existence was turned around.”

“Yeah,” Dean agreed. He’s experienced that once or twice, including when he found out the guy he was falling for was the angel that saved him from hell.

“I have no idea what I’m supposed to do next,” Castiel went on. “Where I’m supposed to go, what I’m supposed to do. I’m not even sure heaven wants me back, if it’s true, what Omiel said about-“

“You screwing up their plans to save me?” Dean supplied. “Well you know what, fuck that. If they don’t want you back for doing the right thing, you’re better off without them.”

Castiel didn’t disagree, but didn’t look particularly comforted either. Dean shifted awkwardly.

“Come back with me,” Dean finally said. “Come back to the bunker. We’ll figure it out from there.”

Castiel met his eye and they looked a touch warmer than they had a minute ago. He recognized the full impact and meaning of Dean’s offer. “Make it up as we go?” he asked.

“Yeah. Why not?”

Dean had no idea what was on Castiel’s plate now, what other plans he might have, how he could fit in with his and Sam’s life, and he certainly didn’t know if he could do the long term relationship thing. He had no idea if he could truly wrap his mind around that relationship being with an angel. The fact that Castiel had saved him still unsettled him to the core.

But he meant what he said, even if it was hard to wrap his mind around. Castiel was the same guy, angel grace or not. And he knew that their case was done and it was time to move on, and he desperately did not want to leave Castiel behind. Especially when he looked like a puppy lost in the woods. A scary, powerful puppy, but a puppy nonetheless.

Castiel looked at him, his deep blue eyes deeper than they’d ever been and sighed. “I can’t go with you right now Dean. I need… time.”

Dean’s stomach sank, but he did his best to stop the disappointment from showing on his face. “Yeah, no, I get that.”

“Dean,” Castiel said, placing a hand on Dean’s arm. “I want to come with you, believe me. Being by your side is the first thing that’s truly made sense to me since I showed up on Earth without a memory. But I have to find out what’s happening with Heaven and what my role is, and you can’t come where I need to go.”

 It didn’t exactly help the feeling that Castiel was out of his league, but it did ease the sting of rejection. Dean covered Castiel’s hand with his own, rubbing his thumb gently on the warm skin.

The moon was high overhead, shining light onto them. It was both peaceful and eerie. Here they were, standing in the middle of the woods on a gorgeous night, nature going on as it always would, and it was all oblivious to the life shaking revelations of the last 12 hours.

“Hey guys,” Sam said, stepping outside. “Not to interrupt, but it’s starting to smell in here.”

Suddenly Dean was anxious to clean up the scene and move on.

“Yeah,” Dean said, pushing off the Impala. “C’mon Sam, let’s get this done.”

When they had cleaned everything up and given Castiel a good story, should he need one, they piled into the Impala. It was a quiet drive back to Castiel’s apartment, and Castiel waited until they were parked at his complex to ask Dean to come up. He wanted the rest of the night with Dean, and honestly, Dean didn’t think it was asking too much.

It was strange. The uncertainty was still there, but somehow nearly being killed and saved again by his angel (well that didn’t take long) had made everything else seem less _huge_. He looked into Castiel’s gorgeous eyes and, though he was still a little hurt by the rejection, couldn’t bring himself to say no. If he could have one more night with Cas, he’d take it. He let Sam take the Impala back to their motel and went up to Castiel’s apartment hand in hand.

And he didn’t say no later either, when Castiel asked Dean to fuck the holy hell out of him. He did laugh though, just a bit.

He fully intended to leave by sun up. Sneak out, leave Castiel sleeping peacefully in bed, no awkward goodbyes. But when the time came, he found he couldn’t untangle himself from Castiel’s limbs.  And when Castiel awoke and slid down to suck his brains out through his dick, he couldn’t say it was a bad decision.

They shared one last kiss by the Impala, the searing heat of Gatlinburg summer trying to compete with them.

“You’ve got my number?” Dean asked.

Castiel nodded. “I’ll call. This isn’t goodbye.”

“Yeah.”

“Dean,” Castiel said, hand raising to brush his cheek. He kissed him deeply one more time. “I promise.”

It was a promise Dean intended to hold him to.

Sam folded his lanky limbs into the passenger side of the Impala, Dean slid into the driver’s seat, and they hit the road. As they left the Smokey Mountains, the mist rising behind them, Dean’s confidence that he’d see Cas again rose. He could still feel the bond between them, and he knew that one day, that bond would lead them back together.

It was fate.

And for once, he was okay with that.

 

 

To be continued...?

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, huge thank you's to all of those in my support team, to [Alene](http://destielengineering.tumblr.com) and [thelegendofmisha](http://thelegendofmisha.tumblr.com) for being incredible from start to finish, helping in every way imaginable, to [appleblossomdean](http://appleblossomdean.tumblr.com) for being one of the best betas I've ever had, and to [georg-prime](http://georg-prime.tumblr.com) for the wonderful art you see here. The art masterpost can be found [here on LJ](http://ash-kah.livejournal.com/7974.html) and does feature some in progress sketches if you're interested. You've all been the best cheerleaders a writer could ever hope for.
> 
> So, what's real? (SPOILERS)
> 
> Gatlinburg really is named after an asshole, who really was feuding with the founder of the town, a Thomas Ogle. The names of the victims are truly names that descend from the Ogle line. Catherine Ogle truly is the city manager of Gatlinburg, and has been doing it for 25 years. I have no idea what she is really like, and I fictionalized her husband entirely. In fact, Katherine is the only character in this story which is based (named) off of a real person. The rest are all fictional. 
> 
> The places are not. All restaurants are real and described as accurately as I could, including the Sugarland's Distillery, which makes, btw, the best apple pie moonshine I have ever tried. The shopping plaza Castiel's shop is located in is also described accurately, and at the location of his shop, there really is an art gallery. But it is not, I hope, run by evil fallen angels.
> 
> The church with five dollar parking is real, as is the motel Dean and Sam stay in.
> 
> The only places that I completely fictionalized are: Castiel's apartment complex, Catherine's house, and both graveyards. The big fact that I utterly ignored is that Gatlin did not die in Tennessee and thus was never buried there. There is a graveyard with his name on the tombstone, and it is indeed empty (or so I read), but it is just behind the main street, and thus I moved it to the middle of nowhere for the sake of the story. And then I just completely bullshitted the one on the mountain.
> 
> What is absolutely true: the city is a wonderful place to visit, and the Smokey Mountains are simply breathtaking, so if you ever have the opportunity, you should definitely plan a trip. And if you do, please, please, please support the local craftsman. They are incredible.


End file.
